


The Violinist and the Violist.

by Megatons



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Multi, Mycroft, Sherlock Holmes - Freeform, Sherlock's Violin, holmes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2014-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-15 04:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 33,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megatons/pseuds/Megatons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Been 2 weeks since John got back from his honeymoon. Between John helping Sherlock and setting up his own practice he hasn't got round to his mission of finding Sherlock a new house mate. Finally Mary had the answer..</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. John's Mission

John had, had a busy morning of patients and was looking forward to nothing more than a cup of tea and some jam toast with his new wife. As he walked into the kitchen, where he knew Mary would be waiting for him, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Removing it the screen flashed,

[Text received from Mycroft Holmes] “How’s the housemate search going? –MH”

John sighed in frustration it had only been 2 weeks since he got back from his honeymoon. Between helping Sherlock and setting up his own practice he hadn’t had a chance to properly unpack his own stuff never mind find his replacement in his old flat.

“ _What’s up?”_ Mary cut across John’s thoughts

_“Mycroft wants an update.”_

_“Still not found someone to move in with Sherlock?”_ Mary hands John the cup of tea and jam toast she had just made him.

_“No not yet, seems that no one can handle living with the crazy, know anyone with the relevant qualifications?”_

_“Hmm”_ Mary ran through the list of people that she knew in her head. “ _Actually remember Victoria from the Wedding?!”_

 _“No...”_ John shook his head in a ‘I'm sorry way’

_“Green dress… Hair was down and kinda curly”_

_“There were 50 green dresses and everyone’s hair was kind of curly.”_

_“I pointed her out to you, she was sat on the Klingon table, how on earth did you ever convince me that Trekafying the table names was a good idea?”_

_“I have my ways.”_ John winked at his wife.

_“Anyway as I was saying, Klingon, green dress, spent most of the night staring off into space.”_

John’s face illuminated _“I remember, she reminded me of Sherlock; you made some terrible joke about getting them together… Look at us a month later actually considering having her move in.”_

 _“Perfect little match makers aren’t we.”_ She smiled at her husband.

_“Now hang on, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, tell me more about her.”_

_“I’ve known her since my pre uni days, 26, does something in forensic science, I’ve never really understood.”_ Mary shakes her head. _“Something to do with bugs…I think. Lovely once you get to know her, a little blunt around new people but lovely none the less.”_

_“She genuinely sounds perfect, why has it taken us this long to find her?”_

_“Well, we only got married a month ago, you moved out what, 5 weeks ago? 2 of those weeks we spent in the Italy. And why is it your job to find his a housemate.”_ Anger rising in her voice.

 _“It’s not my job; I’m just the best person to do it. Sherlock’s too apathetic to make a choice so it falls to me, imagine what would happen if we let Mycroft pick!”_ John moves toward his wife in order to placate her. Mary let out a slight giggle at his Mycroft comment.

_“Do you have Victoria’s number?”_

_“Of course I do, are we really doing this?_ Confusion streaked across her face.

_“Yeah, we are.”_

_“What do I say?”_ Mary removed her phone from her pocket.

 _“Maybe just invite her out for coffee?”_ John offers.

_“Wait! When did it become my job?!?”_

_“Because my darling, she’s your friend”_ John kissed his wife, _“and I have to go see a patient”_ John kissed his wife again, “ _I love you.”_

_“Ditto, back for dinner?”_

_“Back for dinner, must go now.”_

_“Love you James”_ Mary winked at her husband.

 _“James… Good one.”_ John hovers by the kitchen door unable to really tear himself away from his wife again so soon.

 _“Now go or you’ll be late!”_ Mary crossed the small kitchen and gently shoved him out the door.

Mary heard the front door slam. ‘ _Should get on with this_ ’ she thought. Mary scrolled down her short contact list and dialled Victoria's number.

_“Hey Victoria it’s Mary Watson. I was just wondering if you’d found somewhere to live yet? ...Well I might be able to solve all your problems, fancy meeting for a coffee to chat? … Let’s say 3 at the #1 Coffee House? … Great see you then!”_

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *


	2. The Coffee Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee date between Mary and Victoria. It's cut short by life though.

Mary was sat in the coffee house by 3 o’clock. Having found herself a table by the window she ordered a large cup of black tea. She hadn’t been there more than 2 minutes when Victoria walked in; wearing the same shade of green she had at the wedding. At 5ft 4 it would have been easy for Mary to miss Victoria but she had been the only person to enter the coffee house Mary even vaguely recognised. Upon spotting her friend Mary waved at her and stood up.

 _“So how’s it going?”_ Victoria asked as the two women exchanged a short hug.

 _“Good thanks, busy. Come sit down. Can I get you a drink?”_ Mary gestured for the waiter to come over.

 _“A vanilla latte please”_ The waiter having taken the order left in the direction of the serving area. “ _So down to business, you found me a housemate?”_

_“Yeah you remember Sherlock Holmes from the wedding?”_

_“Not particularly…”_

_“John’s best man..?”_

_“Oh yeah the really tall bloke with the incredible poker face”._ The waiter interrupts the flow of conversation with Victoria's Latte. ‘ _Trust Victoria to only remember the height and the face_ ’ thought Mary resulting in her slightly chuckling to herself.

 _“That’s the one, well he’s looking for a housemate”_ Mary struggled for a moment. _“You’re both scientists, what’s the worst that could happen?_

_“Two scientists living together, we could blow the flat up” joked Victoria. “What does he do for a living?_

_“He’s a Consulting Detective.”_

_‘A what?!’_ Victoria thought, Mary shrugged her shoulders as if to say _‘I dunno’._ Both women clearly able to read the others minds then broke into supressed laughter.

 _“He also plays the violin”_ Mary offered.

_“Now that could be nice … plenty of space to think”_

Mary’s face said ‘ _you know you want to’_ in a way no words ever could.

 _“So he plays the violin and is a scientist”_ A flash of interest darted across Victoria’s eyes and Mary knew she was convinced. _“What does John think of him?_

_“John loves him. Best years of his life living with Sherlock.”_

_“So why did John move out?”_

_“It’s a long story,”_ Mary looked into her tea now unable to make eye contact with her friend. “ _Sherlock did something stupid … John never managed to forgive him completely, then John and I met, I think it gave him a good excuse to get out of there, clear his head. If you ever feel brave enough see if you can get it out of Sherlock, he’ll be able to tell you better than I can.”_

Victoria understood the battle that was going on inside Mary’s head. “ _But he’s easy to live with right?”_

_“Sherlock … erm at times, you just have to find the right buttons early on. John can help.”_

_“I can cope with a little crazy. Where is the flat?”_

_“Oh yeah, Baker St.”_ Proclaimed Mary amazed it had taken this long to get to where the flat was.

As she spoke Victoria counted the things off on her fingers _“John likes him, we’re both scientists, it’s close to work, he plays the violin, the rent’s decent, detective… the only question is Sherlock going to cope with a women invading thinking space?”_

_“Only time will tell, maybe you should meet him before you re plan your morning commute. What you doing tomorrow?”_

_“It’s a Saturday I have orchestra in the morning but then nothing from 3 why?”_

_“Keep it free, you’re about to meet the World famous Sherlock Holmes.”_

It was at this moment that Victoria’s phone chose to ring.

 _“Excuse me”_ Victoria got up and moved away from the table, it was a couple of minutes before she came back. “ _Sorry Mary I got to dash, apparently Essex hasn’t got a decent scientist. Give my best wishes to John.”_

And with that Victoria was leaving the coffee house, with a final

 _“Taxi!”_ she was gone.

 _‘Maybe those two are actually perfect for each other, and if they’re not it doesn’t sound like they’re gonna spend a lot of time together in the flat.’_ Mary mused to herself. As she finished up her tea she removed her phone from her bag

[To John] “Green light :) Tell Mycroft. P.s ILY”

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *


	3. Lifeadmin in a Taxi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John does a lot of life-admin in the back of a taxi on the way home.

John got Mary’s text while he was with a patient, it wasn't until the taxi home, he could do anything about it though.

‘Right’ he thought. ‘Now to sort the finer details out.’ John removed his phone from his bag and opened the messaging app.

[To Sherlock] “Sherlock, please be home tomorrow, I have a surprise for you.”

[To Mycroft Holmes] “Problem solved,” *his phone vibrated* “he’ll have a new housemate by Monday.”

[From Sherlock] “Unless it’s my new microscope, I don’t want it - SH”

[To Sherlock] “Tough it’s happening, see you tomorrow.” *the phone vibrated again*

[From Mycroft Holmes] “Who is he? I need to run some checks. – MH"

[To Mycroft Holmes] “No she’s meeting Sherlock first, and then you can check her out.”

[To Greg] “Do me a favour and don’t give Sherlock any cases tomorrow, *the phone vibrated* I need him to be at the flat all day.”

[From Mycroft Holmes] “She’s? Surely that was a mistype, Sherlock and women don’t get on well. – MH”

[To Mycroft Holmes] “Calm down, Mycroft it’s all under control.” *Another Vibration*

[From Greg] “Of course, new housemate?”

[To Greg] “Yeah need him to be in the flat and as undistracted as possible.” *The phone vibrated twice in a row*

[From Mycroft Holmes] “I hope you know what you’re doing – MH”

[From Greg] “Good luck”

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *


	4. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria finally meets the world famous Sherlock

3pm the next day came round too fast for John to feel he had properly prepared Victoria. As they rounded the corner and started down Baker Street, John was still trying to prepare Victoria for what might lie ahead.

_“Remember Victoria this might be painful for you, he doesn’t really like new people…”_

_“I’m sure I can handle it John…”_

_“Well as long as you’re sure, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”_

The taxi pulled up outside 221B, to John’s surprise Victoria suggested splitting the fare. _“I’ve spent so long with Sherlock; I forgot people split the fare,”_ John gabbled.

They both paid the taxi driver and made their way to the black door of 221B. Sensing that Victoria was a little nervous John took the lead and knocked on the door. Mrs Hudson dressed in one of her purple dresses answered.

 _“Is he in?”_ John asked, knowing full well that if Mrs Hudson said he wasn’t, he would snap. Mrs Hudson took a step back and they were all ushered into the hallway.

_“Yeah, demanded I made some food, I didn’t; I’m the landlady not the housekeeper”_

John smiled at Mrs Hudson; he had heard Mrs Hudson rant for the past 5 years about not being the housekeeper, but yet still doing the cleaning. Then remembering that he was still to introduce Victoria stopped thinking and started talking.

 _“Mrs Hudson may I introduce Victoria Harrison.”_ Mrs Hudson and Victoria shook hands “ _should today go ok, she will be refusing to make Sherlock's food from here on in.”_

_“Brilliant! It’ll be nice to have another woman around. Have you warned her about Sherlock?”_

_“Yeah I know all about him”_ Victoria was finally ready to speak _“I'm ready for anything he could throw at me.”_

John and Victoria ducked away from Mrs Hudson and start to climb the 17 stairs to the flat.

_“This is a long way to go to take out the garbage” Complained Victoria. “Luckily 221B is only a couple of blocks away from my apartment.”_

John and Victoria made their way into the living room. Sherlock was in the kitchen using a piece of equipment which John thought looked more suited to the Enterprise, than it did in a domestic kitchen.

_“Sherlock what is that and what are you doing with it?!?” questioned John._

_“I’m running an immuno-assay to analyse the insulin concentrations of some samples … got a diabetes related case.”_

_“Which i_ _mmunoglobulin_ _are you using?”_ inquired Victoria.

 _“IgD”_ replied Sherlock.

 _“You do know you'll get more accurate results if you use IgG…”_ observed Victoria.

Sherlock paused, everything he had learnt about Immuno-assays flashed before his eyes in an instant. Suddenly he saw “ _IgG gives more accurate results over IgD when used with short chain proteins_ ”. Sherlock slammed his hand down on the desk causing both John and Victoria to jump. ‘ _Who is this woman_?’ Sherlock thought. ‘ _How did she know that?_ _Well that’s obvious she’s a scientist’._ Sherlock stood up and rounded on Victoria. Victoria seemed to be intimidated by this action and withdrew to the middle of the living room. He circled her the way a vulture would its prey and looked her over in his searching fashion. Having got over her initial shock, Victoria held her ground and returned Sherlock’s stare whenever he passed in front of her.

John interrupted the silent battle that was going on “ _This is Victoria Harrison, she’s needs somewhere to live, I suggested here.”_

_“Why?” Sherlock asked Victoria “because of the separation?”_

_“How did you know?”_

_“I didn’t know I noticed.”_

John sighed, a sigh which said all the things he couldn’t out loud ‘ _Sherlock not now, this isn’t the right time, you don’t know if she can take it, stop it! Now!_ ’

 _“You’ve moved you Claddagh ring from your left hand to your right”_ Sherlock gestured to Victoria’s hand _“recently as well, state of your relationship right there”_

_“How’d you…”_

_“Your left little finger has a very distinctive tan line on it, left from where you’ve been wearing the ring in the sun, the band indicates that the heart was facing outwards. The lack of an equal band on you ring finger means you didn’t have an engagement ring, the engagement was then either a secret or more likely he was also Irish and understood the symbolism so you forwent an engagement ring.”_ It was clear to John that Sherlock was enjoying taking Victoria’s life apart, it was also clear to the doctor that Victoria wasn’t enjoying it as much as Sherlock was. “ _Was it the trip to America, the Violin or the Job that drove him away?”_ Victoria managed to look confused, hurt and impressed at the same time. John on the other hand had, had enough of Sherlock’s ways. “ _Sherlock not now!”_ he snapped.

 _“Oh please, it’s been a couple of days”_ Sherlock whined like a small child, Victoria began to smile; small children were something she was used to dealing with _._

 _“You’re just showing off”_ John told Sherlock off _._

 _“I am a show off that’s what we do.”_ Sherlock turned his attention back to Victoria, “ _which was it?”_

_“How … how did you know … about America, the music?”_

_“It’s not important”_ John interjected.

Sherlock copied Johns tone, “ _It’s not important”._

 _“Please, I insist.”_ John could have sworn he saw a playfulness flash across Victoria’s face.

 _“The woman insists John”._ Sherlock faced John whilst pointing to Victoria.

 _“Urgh”_ groaned John _“do as you please.”  ‘Don’t blame me when it ends in tears’_ he thought _‘although the way this is going I'm not 100% sure that Victoria would be the one crying.’_ John made his way to the kitchen, made himself a cup of tea and sat down in his old chair to watch the strangest tennis match he had ever seen.

Sherlock was staring at Victoria _“As you entered the flat you referred to the garbage, a couple of blocks and your apartment, so clearly you spent a large amount of time in America. I can tell from you tan”_ He pointed to her exposed neck line _“that you’ve been there recently, we’ve had nothing but rain and clouds for 3 weeks; no one is that tanned. The tan lines show that you weren’t sunbathing so you were there for work. And as for the violin, the resin from your bow on your trousers”_ he pointed to a small stain on her trousers John hadn’t even noticed _“and the LPO pass in your pocket were almost too obvious.”_

Victoria lowered an eyebrow ever so slightly and her face flashed with disappointment “ _I was almost impressed Mr Holmes.”_ She announced.

 _“Almost?”_ Sherlock questioned her.

 _“Yeah, very good but wrong”_ Victoria had begun to smile.

_“Wrong?!?” Sherlock’s mind screamed out. Being wrong wasn’t something he was used to._

_“It wasn’t America, it was Africa”_ Victoria explained. _“I mentioned the garbage, block and apartment to see if you were as good as John thinks you are, and it isn’t the violin it’s the viola”_ Victoria threw Sherlock the same face John had seen Sherlock give Anderson many times over the years. _“My pass clearly says Viola...”_ She pulled out the pass to prove it, _“maybe you need to pay more attention.”_

 _“You were testing me?”_ Sherlock said clearly shocked he had fallen for it, but impressed she had fooled him.

 _“Don’t worry, you did fine.”_ Sherlock opened his mouth to speak but no words came to him, he quickly shut his mouth again, there was no way he was going to let Victoria think he was anymore stupid than she already did. _“Oh and the separation, I left him. He broke his promise to me for another woman; I don’t need that in my life, emotions are detrimental at the best of times, especially in my line of work.”_

_“What is your line of work?”_

_“Haven’t you deduced it yet? I’m a scientist - well a specialist … I travel internationally … I get asked to go to places.”_

_“You’re a consultant”_

_“Of sorts, I’m an independent forensic expert. When local… or international forces have a specific need or a case that baffles them, I’m the woman they call.”_

_“Specific need?”_

_“Entomology, I'm an entomologist.”_

_“Hmmm… That could be useful.”_ Sherlock turned to face John, who was still sat in his chair, smiling at Victoria, clearly having just enjoyed watching Sherlock eat humble pie. “ _John I approve. Assuming she isn’t too womanly, move her in tomorrow”_

_‘Have I become invisible?’ Victoria asked herself._

_“I’ll be in the lab most of the day,”_ continued Sherlock _“move her in while I'm away, Mrs Hudson should be in all day.”_

 _“But it’s a Sunday tomorrow.”_ noted John.

 _“Criminals don’t take a day off. Why should I? Now get out!”_ Sherlock pointed to the door. John stood up to leave – he knew all too well where this was going.

 _“Get out?”_ Victoria asked unaware of what was happening.

 _“Get out, I need to visit my mind palace”_ Sherlock said, like it was some kind of explanation.

_“Like Hannibal Lecter?”_

_“Yes now get out!”_ Sherlock had already sat down and closed his eyes.

 _“We might as well go; he isn’t going to say anything for a while, coffee?”_ John and Victoria had left the flat and began descending the stairs.

_“Sounds amazing, #1 coffee house?”_

_“Sure just need to swing by Mrs Hudson.”_ John was on the bottom step. “ _Mrs Hudson!”_ John bellowed.

 _“Yes dear?”_ Mrs Hudson had appeared at her front door.

 _“Victoria will be moving in tomorrow, you’re gonna be in yeah?”_ John said with a massive smile on his face, proud that his plan had worked.

“ _Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”_

 _“Until then Mrs Hudson,”_ John turned to leave the house.

_“Bye!”_

_“See you tomorrow!” Victoria offered her goodbye._

John had already left the house, he had said his goodbyes, was eager for a coffee and to find out how exactly Victoria had done what she did to the detective.

 _“Taxi!”_ John yelled as soon as Victoria joined him.

 

*          *          *          *          *          *


	5. The Move

“ _I can’t believe you managed to get me out of bed before 11 on a Sunday_ ” Mary whined to her husband. The taxi to take them to Victoria's had arrived at 10 am. John had hoped to get Victoria sooner but Mary had been insistent that any early was bordering on unsocial, especially for a Sunday.

“ _Do you think we have enough boxes?_ ” John pointed to the mountain of empty cardboard boxes that were on the taxi floor. He smiled at his wife. “ _Once we’re there I will run out and get you a coffee ok?_ ”

“ _You better_ ” Mary pouted, “ _I think I'm dying_ ”

“ _No!_ ” gasped John sarcastically and reached for his wife’s pulse. He paused. “ _In my medical opinion, you are not dying; in fact you couldn’t be healthier._ ” He smiled at his wife. “ _The sooner we get this done the sooner we can be home again. It’s not going to take more than 4 hours_ ” John tried the last card he had “ _How about we go for lunch after we’ve packed her up._ ”

“ _Deal_ ” Mary kissed John “ _has to be Italian though_ ”.

“ _Mary Watson, when did you get so difficult to please?_ ”

“ _The day I married you, John Watson_ ”

The taxi pulled up outside Victoria house in Primrose Hill.

“ _This is a lovely are, maybe we should ask if we can move in once she’s moved out_ ” Mary mused.

“ _Hello you two_ ” Victoria’s voice came from her doorway. “ _Come to help me move out?_ ” she asked jokingly.

“ _Come and give us a hand with these boxes_ ” John pointed to the boxes in the taxi.

“ _Don’t think we’re gonna need this many_ ” Victoria led the way into her house. “ _Welcome to my humble little abode. I shouldn’t need more than 5 boxes, well 5 and a suitcase_.”

“ _Is that it?_ ” Mary asked confused “ _I think John took more than that to Afghanistan with him_ ” She joked.

“ _All the moving_ ” Victoria explained, “ _you learn to live light, I haven’t stayed in one place more than a year, we should be packed up by 12 easily_.” Mary smiled. “ _I can be settling into Baker Street by 1, gives you the afternoon to yourselves_.”

John gave Mary an ‘ _I told you it would all be fine_ ’ look.

“ _Do you two want to start in the kitchen? It’s all labelled. Green labels are coming with me, on no account touch the stuff with red labels. They have to stay in the house or my Dad'll kill me._ ”

“ _Dad?_ ” John asked confused.

“ _My dad owns the house_ ” Victoria explained. “ _Once I broke up with Sam he discovered he needed to move to London. Dad’s moving in so I'm moving out, 1 Harrison is enough per house._ ” She hoped Mary and John wouldn’t ask any more questions.

Mary and John made short work of the kitchen, Victoria’s labelling had made the whole affair much smoother. Victoria had already packed a box and the suitcase by the time they had finished.

“ _How’s it going?_ ” John yelled up the stairs.

“ _Almost done_ ” came the reply “ _can you do the living room? It’s all labelled_.” John heard the sound of duct tape. Next moment he saw Victoria carrying a box down the stairs, “ _remember green good, red bad_.”

“ _How’d you manage this so fast?_ ” John gestured to the packed boxes.

“ _Efficiency, I had everything in piles before you arrived, you and Mary had the longer job wrapping everything, now apart from these, I’ve got my viola, guitar and coffee machine and that’s honestly it._ ”

“ _It’s no issue_ ” John smiled. “ _The viola and the guitar can be walked across Regents Park if need be, might be a nice walk actually_.”

John and Mary made their way into the living room and packed up all Victoria’s books. “ _These are all science books_ ” John said to his wife “ _she is going to fit into 221B perfectly_.”

A horn beeped outside. Victoria flew down the stairs. “ _That’ll be the van I ordered_ ” and she rushed outside to talk to the van driver. “ _Mary, do you and John want to stroll across Regents Park and I’ll meet you at the other end?_ ” She asked when she came back inside.

“ _Yeah sure_ ” Mary said, relived that the job was half over and that she and John were finally gonna get some time alone.

It was 45 minutes before Mary and John found themselves at Baker Street.

“ _Hello you two_ ” said a beaming Mrs Hudson who was stood in the doorway. Victoria was stood by the open doors of the van.

“ _How many more have you got to go_?” asked Mary.

“ _All of it, Mrs H and I got talking, tea became more important, totally forgot about unpacking._ ”

“ _Never mind_ ” chuckled John. “ _15 minutes and you'll be in your new house_.”

“ _Yay_ ” came Victoria's reply, only half as sarcastically as John had expected.

Victoria, John and Mary all marched up the short flight of stairs all with boxes in hand.

“ _My room is the one upstairs I assume_ ”

“ _I assume so too, I can’t imagine Sherlock will ever move out of the bottom bedroom_ ” John shook his head. They dumped the boxes on the floor of Victoria‘s room.

“ _Seems I packed the right amount of stuff, gonna fill the room nicely_.” Victoria took in her new room for a moment. “ _Second load time._ ”

“ _John kitchen, Mary yours needs to head to the living room, bedroom for me._ ”

Victoria found Mary and John in the living room. “ _Suitcase and coffee machine to go but I’m sure I can manage_ ”. Victoria moved into the kitchen and pulled out a Waitrose bag neither John nor Mary had noticed. “ _This is for you, just a small token_.”

“ _You really don’t need to_ ” Mary began.

“ _Thank you_ ” John cut across his wife, he didn’t want to get stuck in the ‘ _you don’t have to, I insist_ ’ loop his wife was so fond of.

“ _It was nothing_ ” John took the bag from her.

“ _Right well we must be off_ ” Mary announced.

“ _Yes, yes don’t let me keep you any longer._ ”

“ _You gonna be ok?_ ” John asked concerned for the young women.

“ _Yeah after yesterday I would be more worried about Sherlock now go before I find you something to do!_ ” They all laughed. Victoria shooed them out of the living room, she hovered in the doorway as she watched Mary and John walk down the stairs. ‘ _Right_ ’ she thought ‘ _suitcase and then coffee machine_.’ 


	6. The First Night

‘ _Suitcase and then the coffee machine, most important thing first. Gonna leave all my clothes till later though… I might want to escape Sherlock… I can’t imagine he’s going to be easy to be around tonight. Especially after yesterday… maybe he’ll be at the lab all night… maybe he’s got a nice distracting case… maybe the diabetes thing has really kicked off… maybe I won’t see him for a couple of days, oh God somehow I think that would be worse, I would rather he was here and being mean to me. At least I wouldn’t be left waiting for it to start; apprehension is by far the worst emotion… Oh God what have I let myself in for? What if he blows the flat up experimenting? What if he experiments on me? He wouldn’t, he can’t, he won’t… I’d kill him if he did’_ she smiled. ‘ _And John would kill him, God! This suitcase weighs more than what I remember, what happened to it in the van? No idiot women nothing happened to it in the van it’s just the increase in GPE, dumb ass. Basic physics, basic physics, basic physics! How could you forget something simple? Maybe I need a coffee; I need to be firing on full cylinders when Sherlock gets back. It’s gonna be a battle of wills and wits living here. If it were a contest we’d be at 1-1… he got the separation and I fooled him with America_ ’. She grinned to herself at the memory. ‘ _Suitcase meet bed… Oh bed… Bed would be nice now… Maybe it’s time for a nap… Coffee machine then I can have a rest… Can’t use the bed though… Suitcase…Sofa it is then… Sleep time… No! Coffee machine…  Now Victoria, let’s go, come on!’_ She willed herself to move. ‘ _You only got up at 5 for goodness sake. What kind of weakness is this? Come on left, right, left, right._ ’ Coffee machine now in hand she made her way slowly up the 17 stairs to the flat. ‘ _Machine… Kitchen… Deal… Later_.’ The overwhelming need for sleep stealing her ability to form complete sentences. ‘ _Sofa… 10 minutes, hmm relief’_ she sighed as she collapsed on the sofa ‘ _biggest sofa ever’_   was her final thought before she curled up into a ball and fell asleep.

Victoria opened her eyes; it was dark outside the windows. ‘ _Ah gosh… I feel terrible… urgh’_ it was then that she noticed she was covered ‘ _and what the hell is this?_  ' she slighted lifted a large black coat off herself.

“ _Your teeth were chattering in your sleep, it was distracting, I needed you to be silent_ ”

“ _Sorry_ ” A strange feeling of guilt built in her stomach. She looked in the direction of the voice; Sherlock had his back to her and was staring at the wall. He had covered the wall in pictures, chemicals formulas and machine print outs. Victoria sat herself up; she took in the full shape of the wall. He’d left the mirror free of pictures which Victoria deduced was how he had known she had woken up, he had seen her move ‘ _I wonder if he was watching me sleep, huh it wouldn’t surprise me_ ’. Victoria got to her feet gingerly, legs refusing to work after being still for so long. Her stomach rumbled as Victoria started to tease her joints into moving ‘ _oh great and now I need to eat, first I need to sleep and now I need to eat, jeez body it’s all me, me, me with you today... Anyway what is it the time… 20 to 9, 20 to 9! I was asleep for 6 hours. 6 hours! ... 6 hours I could have used productively for goodness sake’_ Victoria’s shoulder popped, Sherlock glared at her in the mirror. ‘ _What a waste of time, urgh_.’ Her stomach rumbled again ‘O _k I get it! I'm going! Time for food, coat is in the suitcase… lets go.’_ Victoria made her way out of the living room.

Sherlock was waiting for her in the doorway, impatience written across his face.

“ _We need milk_ ” he stated. ‘ _Right’_ she thought ‘ _and you couldn’t have got some while you were out_ , _where am I gonna find a shop open at this hour.’_ Sherlock handed her a key to the flat.

“ _I don’t want to have to let you in”_ ‘ _Oh because your time is so precious_ ’ she sneered internal at the young detective 

“ _Right milk… Beans? Bread?_ ”

“ _Whatever_ ” Sherlock had already turned back to the wall. Victoria groaned; she had, had enough of Sherlock’s ways already. Just to make her point she stomped down the stairs and out the flat, slamming the front door for good measure.

“ _Yoo-Hoo_ ” Mrs Hudson brought Sherlock back out of his thoughts less than 15 minutes later.

“ _You two had a domestic already?”_ Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“ _No_ ” his gaze remained fixed on the wall. “ _She’s gone out for food and milk._ ”

“ _Food_?!” asked Mrs Hudson surprised, _“you never eat.”_

 _“Not for me - obviously. Her.” T_ hey both heard the front door go. Victoria slowly made her way up the stairs, convinced she could her voices from the flat. Voices that were talking about her.

“ _Sorry Mrs H can I just get past_?”

“ _Something smells good dear._ ”

“ _Too lazy to cook tonight, although looking at the kitchen I don’t know if I'm ever gonna cook_ ” she shot Sherlock a sordid look. Mrs Hudson laughed quietly. 

“ _I’m sure you'll be fine once you get sorted_.” Victoria went to put the milk in the fridge. “ _Watch out for the thumbs_.”

“ _Thumbs?_ ” Victoria questioned.

“ _They were an experiment”_ Sherlock interjected.

“ _Of course they were_ ” Victoria rolled her eyes.

“ _Sherlock’s always ruining stuff, did John tell you about the time he shot the wall?”_ Mrs Hudson gestured to the smiley face on that wall.

“ _No, bored were we?”_ She asked the back of Sherlock's head. _“I sorta did the same thing once, admittedly I used knives and a dart board but the end result was very similar, my aim wasn’t very good at the beginning, it was perfect by the next morning though. Had that bill added to my rent.”_ Sherlock grinned to himself, Mrs Hudson looked terrified. “ _But not to worry Mrs H, I’ve grown out of it now, find myself inexplicably bored I just bust out the viola, much easier for everyone involved, well almost everyone, I think my fingers would prefer I took it out on the wall but anyway…”_  

Mrs Hudson took a step back.

“ _Anyway_ ” she started “ _I’ll leave you to it then. Goodnight all._ ”

“ _Goodbye_ ” Sherlock said to the wall.

“ _Goodbye?”_ Victoria turned to look at Sherlock _“No Sherlock wrong response, he means goodnight. Good night Mrs H, sleep well. I promise no guns or knives or any such thing tonight.”_ Victoria called after the descending Mrs Hudson.

“ _Right well I’m gonna call it a night myself, good luck with the wall”_ she retrieved her Chinese and walked up stairs.

‘ _Finally some silence’_ he thought ‘ _I might get somewhere now.’_


	7. The Coffee and The Sugar

Victoria woke to the sound of the violin. ‘ _Well that’s gonna be nice for the first couple of days_ ’. A damp patch on the ceiling caught Victoria attention. ‘ _So glad I have work today, I couldn’t stay here I think we’d kill each other, or rather I’d kill him_ ’ she chuckled. _‘And I’d get away with it benefit of being a forensic scientist we know how to do these things and get away with it … urgh, let’s get this over with then_.’ She let out an involuntary groan as she got out of bed, wrapped herself in a dressing gown and made her way downstairs.

Sherlock was already in the living room, they didn’t say one word to each other as Victoria unpacked her coffee machine, found a gap for it and made two cups of very strong coffee, holding both she walked into the living room.

“ _Here_ ” she said to Sherlock. He didn’t stop playing but fixed his gaze on her.

“ _It’s coffee”_ she put a cup down in front of him “ _you have the same shirt on as yesterday, under that dressing gown, I take it you didn’t get any sleep then.  Case still proving elusive? No sleep … I guess you’re running almost exclusively off caffeine these days then.”_ She looked at her still unpacked boxes “ _I promise I will unpack these tonight …Unless you want to do it for me? Give you a chance to make some unadulterated deductions about me wont it?”_ she asked knowing full well that she would have to do the boxes as there wasn’t a hope in hell that Sherlock was going to do them. Victoria took herself back to what was now her room.

She shut her bedroom door and Sherlock’s brain kicked into another gear. ‘ _She made me coffee? What kind of a gesture is coffee? It is going to be as nice as John’s? John makes a good coffee. Maybe it’s poisoned, no there wasn’t enough time for her to poison it and poison is too obvious for Victoria. Sherlock Holmes just try the coffee, it’s only a cup of coffee she isn’t going to expect anything from you, or is she. She is a woman… I can’t let her in my head I can’t let her mess with me like Irene did, look at how that ended. Sherlock drink the coffee it’s meant as a goodwill gesture.’_

Sherlock having finally settled on it being a goodwill gesture put down his violin and braced himself for what could have been the worst coffee of his life… ‘ _Actually this isn’t bad, hmm not sweet enough but a far nicer morning coffee than normal. This is an efficient way to get caffeine in the morning, well done Victoria you can stay, 1 st test passed congratulations.’ _Sherlock could already fell the caffeine seeping into his bloodstream.

“ _Sherlock I’m off_.” Victoria reappeared in the doorway already dressed in her coat. “ _Don’t blow up the flat. The paper work alone would make me kill you. And ‘member milk belongs in the fridge, I would like to see it there when I get back._ ” She flashed Sherlock a smile as she rushed down the stairs. Sherlock moved towards the window and watched Victoria cross the road. ‘ _No taxi’_ he thought ‘ _must be taking the tube to work.’_

Sherlock sat himself down at his microscope and began comparing slides of sugars. He needed to make a break through with this case today. He was sure the sugar was contaminated, he just couldn’t prove how or what with. The people who ran the residence were definitely to blame though. Lestrade wouldn’t push the case forward until Sherlock could prove 100 % what he knew had happened, had happened.

Victoria returned from a long day at the University to find Sherlock glued to his microscope.

She dumped her bag and coat on the sofa and made her way over to the wall of information, curiosity getting the better of her.

According to the wall, 12 diabetic patients in one particular residence had died in the past year, 12 people who apart from having hard to manage diabetes didn’t have a huge lot else wrong with them. The 12 patients had all suffered a massive hyperglycaemia attack and then died. Victoria picked up the files on a patient, Joan Sutherland. She was the most recent to die, she had had a hyperglycaemia attack, insulin was administered but she had still had a heart attack and died. Victoria picked up another file, it was the same story hyperglycaemia, insulin, death, another the same story, another the same.

“ _Sherlock it isn’t it the sugar is it?_ ” Sherlock didn’t reply. Victoria tried again. “ _Sherlock it isn’t in the sugar is it?”_ Sherlock looked up from his microscope and instantly became aware of how sore his shoulders were and how stiff his neck had become from being huddled over all day.

“ _Sherlock it isn’t in the sugar because what you’re looking for was never in the sugar, it is in the insulin”_

 _“I’m sorry what?”_ Sherlock asked confused and annoyed that he had been disturbed.

_“Whatever compound you’re looking for is in the insulin... if it isn’t in the sugar then it must be the insulin, these 12 patients were all at the same place, they were all injected with insulin that should have counteracted their hyperglycaemia and yet it did nothing. Someone is tampering with the insulin at either at production at which point finding the culprit becomes a nightmare or its one of the people working at the residence, at which point the suspect list is what 15 people long?”_

Sherlock jumped out of seat like a monkey out of a box, he rushed over to the wall to look at the list of suspects _“21”_

 _“21… hmm not 100s but still 20 too many people…”_ they both looked at the list of 21 names. “ _Who would benefit from 12 people dying Sherlock?”_

_“I don’t know, it’s not important, who would have access to the insulin?”_

_“Anybody?”_

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “ _Think, the insulin is kept in a locked cupboard”_

 _“So anyone with a copy of that specific key, you would only get a copy of that key if you had a reason to go in that cupboard,  it’s highly unlikely then that the cleaners had a copy of the key”_ Victoria reached for a pen and crossed off 5 of the names. “ _Or the office staff for that matter”_ 2 more names came off the list. 

_“I hardly doubt the directing manager or his assistant have left their offices in the past 2 years”_ Sherlock took the pen and crossed off 2 names.

“ _The cooks, dinner staff and other admins don’t have the necessary skill to administer the insulin or have a key”_ 7 more names came off the list “ _Well that leaves us with the Doctor and the 4 Nurses… well that was the longest way to get to the most logical outcome. Hmm there’s nothing more that can be done tonight is there?”_

Sherlock shook his head “ _I will go to Lestrade first thing in the morning”_

_“Well I’m gonna go for a walk round Regent’s Park then, it’s a nice colour out tonight, see you soon”_

Victoria was gone before Sherlock could protest. _‘That woman’_ he thought ‘ _her deducttive powers are worth investing in; she has an incredible brain… I’ve never met a woman like her before… She’s rather unique… I rather like her… I rather do…’_


	8. The Rant

Victoria slammed the front door, _“Sherlock Holmes!”_ Victoria was cross, really cross.

 _“Sherlock!”_ She rounded on him and brought them face to face. _“You had me followed”_

_“I what?”_

_“You. Had. Me. Followed”_

“ _No I didn’t. When was this supposed following?”_

“ _This evening while I was at the park_ ”

“ _And how do you know they were following you_?”

“ _Because they were following me… This dude spent 45 minutes following me round the park_.”

“ _How do you know he was working for someone?”_

“ _I hid in a bush, he couldn’t see me, he called his boss a Mr Holmes, his words “I'm sorry Mr Holmes; I’ve lost her” are you or are you not Mr Holmes?”_

“ _Yes but I'm not the only one_ ”

“ _I know that, I assumed there were at least 2 of you, but you are the only one that I know knows me. Who apart from you would be interested in what I'm doing without having the emotional ability to just ask me_?”

“ _It doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter, just don’t go anywhere stupid and you’ll be fine_ ”

“ _Who the hell do I have to avoid? Who is he_?”

“ _No one of importance, stop worrying about it_ ”

“ _If I have to look over my shoulder constantly I will worry about it. If it isn’t you then which one of your strange relatives is it? Sherlock are you even listening to me_?”

Sherlock had sat down in his chair, shut his eyes and had begun muttering to himself.

“ _Sherlock!?”_ Victoria raised her voice, “ _Sherlock, Sherlock! Argh I swear one of these days I’m going to…_ ” she mimed strangling Sherlock.

Victoria sighed _‘alright’_ she thought ‘ _time to calm down, I'm sure Sherlock is right, I'm sure it’s nothing to worry about, it's either his father or a brother clearly just worried about who  has moved in, a mean a little strange that they hired someone to follow me rather than just come out with it themselves. But maybe that is the way his family works, maybe they set people after themselves all the time. Such a strange way to live … but if they haven’t known anything else… jeez… ok just need to be more aware and not do anything stupid, if this is how his family gets to know people then I need to make a good impression… make a good impression to a ghost… like my life wasn’t complicated enough… still none of the Holmes boys can be dangerous can they… calmed down yet brain? Good.’_ Having calmed herself down enough to be able to move again Victoria set about making more coffee, it might have been getting late but she knew sleep was a long way off for both of them. She put Sherlock’s coffee in front of him in the hope that the smell alone would bring him out of his mind palace. When he opened his eyes, she spoke

“ _Look Sherlock I’m sorry about that,”_ Victoria’s eyes were fixed on her coffee.  “ _The whole thing just sent me round a loop… I’m sure whoever he is will show himself and soon, so you were right. Why worry about it now, when I come face to face with the strange man I can ask him all my questions_.”

Victoria gave up on emotions and returned to silence, she sat next to her box and began unloading the mountain of books within it. Sherlock’s books in the book shelf seemed to be in no particular order at all, so she began adding all her books to the bottom shelf, _‘If Sherlock wants to order them, then he can later on but for now that’s one box down…’_ Victoria yawned, _‘urgh been a long day… it's gone midnight… well better get to sleep got to see the Dean tomorrow, funding review… urgh’_ Without saying one word to Sherlock who had returned to muttering to himself, she walked upstairs and got ready for bed. ‘ _Day 2 – 2-1 to me’_

Sherlock found his thoughts returned to Victoria all evening, no matter how hard he tried to stop himself he always ended up thinking about what she had said, how angry she had been at being followed, how confused she had been that Mycroft has sent a lackey to do his leg work for him, how annoyed she had been at the invasion of her privacy and how above all she had been hurt, hurt by a man she hasn’t even met yet. Sherlock recalled how hard it had been for her to explain how she was feeling, how she had been unable to make eye contact with him. Sherlock understood how hard she must find emotions; he himself had found emotions almost impossible to explain, even to John, and a massive weakness. He had once succumbed to them, just a little, he thought she had cared about him but it turned out she was just using him. Sherlock had ignored all his instincts and followed his heart. A decision which led to 2 governments hating him… But the same emotions he reminded himself had been Irene’s downfall… Irene, Sherlock had never been able to say goodbye to her properly and so she was alive somewhere in the world and probably causing trouble. Could Victoria play Sherlock the same way, he didn’t think so she seemed honest, loyal, smart, trustworthy… everything he wanted in a long term companion… everything that John loved about Mary… Sherlock had heard him say so at the wedding… Could Victoria be to Sherlock what Mary was to John? Could they find a way to stop emotions having a detrimental effect? Could they make dangerous emotions safe?

Sherlock spent a couple of hours attempting to put all his conflicting thoughts into a logical order. A logical order which could then be stored into boxes in a room in his mind palace marked ‘V-Harrison’ but the more he tried the less sense he found they made. Sherlock gave up trying at 2am and decided after being awake for nearly 4 days straight it was time for some sleep.


	9. The Lab

[To John] Meet me at the lab ASAP need your medical opinion -SH

Sherlock had got to the lab as soon as it had opened, John arrived 5 minutes later. Sherlock and John spent 10 minutes talking over the case of the contaminated Insulin.

[To Molly Hooper] I'm upstairs could you bring me a coffee? – SH

They had just started running analysis on the first Insulin sample when Molly walked in.

“ _Working here today then?_ ” She asked beaming at the young detective whilst handing him the coffee.

“ _Only until I get my results. Thanks”_

Sherlock knew as soon as the coffee touched his lips something was wrong.

He didn’t like the taste of coffee anymore. Was it the taste of instant coffee or coffee made by Molly he no longer could stand? ‘ _What is this?’_ he thought to himself. ‘ _This isn’t how coffee normally tastes, has Victoria turned me into a coffee snob … I have only had espresso coffee for the past few days. Maybe I’ve begun associating coffee with her? ...Oh good Lord ’_

A computer spat out its results and John collected them from the printer.

“ _Yep that’s do it, murder weapon found, medical opinion heart attack and then death, I’d say case cracked”_

_“Not so fast John, we still have to prove which of the employees it was, but Lestrade will get it out of them in the interviews, he isn’t the best the yard can offer for nothing you know, you still good? Or have you got to run back to work?”_

_“No I took the morning off, advantage of having a private practice”_ John beamed, proud of his new job.

_“Well perhaps you’d like to come with me … for old time’s sake”_

_“Yeah, why not, been a while since I’ve seen Greg”_

_“Greg?”_ Sherlock still couldn’t understand why John called Lestrade, Greg.  Admittedly Greg is his name but it was a matter of professional integrity in Sherlock’s eyes to call him Lestrade, especially in front of witnesses and suspects, John didn’t seem to have that integrity and that confused Sherlock.

Sherlock returned his undrunk coffee to Molly.

Sherlock and John swept out of the lab and jumped straight into a taxi.

It was a short cab ride to The Yard; John managed to fill every minute with questions about life in 221B none of which Sherlock answered as he was too busy thinking to waste time talking.

‘ _If it wasn’t for Victoria I would never have got to the end of this, invaluable that woman, invaluable. Life in 221B has been more....productive since she entered it.’_

The taxi pulled up outside Scotland Yard, Lestrade was waiting for them in his office.

“ _Heard you’d had a breakthrough”_ Lestrade began before Sherlock was even in the office.

 _“I had heard he was stuck”_ Donavan piped up from her desk just outside Lestrade’s office. Sherlock didn’t reply just stared with a vengeful hate out the window.

“ _So you found the compound in the sugar then?”_

_“You thought it was in the sugar? Then why were we testing the insulin”_

_“Because obviously John it was in the insulin not the sugar.”_

_“Yesterday”_ Lestrade started “ _You were convinced it was in the sugar and now you know it was in the insulin, what on earth caused this change of direction?”_

 _“I know”_ John smiled. “ _It was Victoria wasn’t it?”_

 _“Victoria is the new housemate yeah? She’s helping you solve crimes… you and her must be close already”_ Lestrade teased Sherlock. Sherlock said nothing he knew better than to rise to Lestrade’s jibes.

The office fell silent as the 3 men pondered the new woman who had walked into their lives.

“ _Inspector”_ Sherlock turned to face Lestrade “ _I trust I can leave questioning the suspects to you”_

 _“Yeah, I think I can manage thanks”_ Lestrade rolled his eyes; Sherlock belittling him had become 2nd nature. Sherlock swept out of the small office without saying another word.

“ _He means bye_ ” John covered for Sherlock. “ _See you soon for drinks?_ ”

“ _Yeah I’ll set it up”_

_“I look forward to it”_

By the time John had got to the entrance, Sherlock was nowhere to be seen. _‘He’s gone off in a strop let’s leave him to it. Gonna go visit Mary before my next patient’_


	10. The Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Victoria meets Mycroft, and gets the upper hand... just.

It wasn’t too long before Victoria got to meet the strange Mr Holmes, after a positive meeting with the Dean, the phone in her office rang,

_“Victoria Harrison”_

_“Err Yes”_

_“Currently sat in your office wearing a blue skirt suit… back towards the window…”_

_“Who are you? What do you want?”_

_“Look out the window”_

Victoria did as the voice down the phone instructed.

_“Can you see the black car Jaguar outside the main entrance?”_

_“Yeah, with the scary looking bloke in it?”_

_“Get in the car, I would make some kind of threat but I'm sure your situation is quite clear to you”_

Victoria gathered her belonging and nerves at the same time, she had a feeling she knew who she was going to meet and he was no one to be afraid of; Sherlock had said so. The driver of the car opened the door silently and Victoria made her way into the empty back seat nerves building more than what she had hoped. As London flew by out the window Victoria tried to figure out where she was being taken but very soon got lost. ‘ _I’m somewhere by the river’_ was all she knew by the time the car finally stopped. The driver let Victoria out and she was met by a young woman who told her to follow her and mind her step for the ground was wet. The young woman took Victoria to what seemed to be the lowest level of a disused car park. They weren’t alone though for there was a tall, skinny man stood in the middle of the room. Victoria thought she recognised the face, _‘well not the face so much but the piercing eyes, Sherlock has the same eyes.’_ And it was with that thought that Victoria made the deduction about who she was faced. She had found just what she wanted to say to this man when he spoke first.

 _“Welcome Victoria”_ he stretched his arms wide as if to welcome her to the empty space like it was his home.

_“Yeah hi”_

_“What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”_

_“I could be wrong but I don’t think that’s any of your business.”_

_“Oh it really could be…”_

_“Why because you’re his brother?”_ Victoria suddenly felt stronger in herself, surer of what she was doing.

 _“Don’t look like that,”_ Victoria continued “ _it’s not that hard to work out, a man working for a Mr Holmes followed me round a park yesterday and then I'm dragged off to this …”_ She pointed around her, “ _whatever this is … It’s wasn’t that difficult to come to the conclusion that you’re the Mr Holmes … Now you …”_ She pointed squarely at Mr Holmes. _“You’re older than Sherlock is but not old enough to be his dad, so brother it is then. Now tell me what could be so important that you couldn’t just call me on my phone? I mean you clearly have my work number so it isn’t unimaginable that you have my mobile number too.”_

 _“When one is avoiding the attention one learns to be discreet hence this place”_ Mr Holmes pointed around at the room.

_“Yeah discreet, Sherlock will know I'm here already. I was supposed to be home half hour ago, he isn’t that dumb”_

_“You’ve known my brother since when?”_

_“Saturday, but I'm sure you knew that already.”_

_“And since then you’ve moved in and now you’re solving crimes together. Are we to expect a happy announcement at the end of the week?”_

_“I was solving crimes before I met your brother.”_

_“Oh I know all about your career.”_

_“What do you want?”_

_“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock?”_

_“I don’t plan to move house again, no. And why do you care? I mean it's clear you two don’t get on.”_

_“We have what you might call a difficult relationship”_

_“Really?! I would never have guessed. I can’t imagine bullying his housemates helps either.”_

_“Oh this isn’t me bullying you”_

_"So what do you want?"_

_“Information”_

__“About … Sherlock?”_ _

_“Nothing indiscreet I just want know what he’s up to.”_

_“Why don’t you just ask him?”_

_“Remember that difficult relationship?”_

_“So you want me to feed you information about what your brother’s doing because he doesn’t trust you, so you can’t ask him yourself?”_

_“If you wouldn’t mind”_

_“Hell to the no, I’m sorry, whatever this family feud is you have got going on, it’s between you two, there is no way I'm getting involved, if you want to know what he’s doing ask him yourself.”_

_“You’re very loyal very quickly.”_

_“And if id said yes, you would have accused me of being fickle.”_

_“Perhaps”_

Victoria threw her hands up in the air in exasperation _“urgh you Holmes men are impossible, are we done here?”_

_“If you won’t help me then I guess we are”_

_“I’m being driven home thank you”_

_“Yes you are”_

_“Two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street please”_

[To Sherlock Holmes] I can see why you like her – MH

[To John Watson]  Good choice, loyal and brave, well done – MH 


	11. The Return

[To Mycroft] Now leave her out of it, people will suffer. We don’t want to upset mother do we?   – SH

[To Sherlock Holmes] Mummy, and it wasn’t me who upset her Sherlock – MH

Sherlock rolled his eyes and threw his phone down on the table, there was no point in opening old wounds, his brother Mycroft could be petty at times and wasn’t against bringing up the past to make his point. ‘ _Sounds like Victoria gave Mycroft a run for his money, good work Victoria’._

Victoria arrived home much later than Sherlock had expected her to.

_Sherlock was staring at the ceiling._

_“Had a fun day?"_

_"You could say that, met that brother of yours today."_

_"Ahh mycroft, did he want anything in specific or was it just the usual scaremongering"_

_"He asked me to spy on you."_

_"What did you say?"_

_"No of course, and I as I explained to him, there is not right answer to that question if I had said yes he would of called me fickle"_

Victoria dropped her gaze to the floor and dug her chin into her scarf.

 _"Are you ok_?" Sherlock asked

 _"Yeah why wouldn't I be?"_ Victoria snapped out of the slight trance she was in.

 _"You've been here a full 5 minutes and you haven't asked me why I'm staring at the ceiling yet"_ ' _and_ ' he thought to himself _'your body language screams that there's something wrong'_

_"I hadn't noticed you were doing anything out of the ordinary. So why are you staring at the ceiling?”_

_"The great bear"_

_"The great what?"_

_"Bear, Ursa Major, come and see"_

Victoria sat on the floor next to the sofa and looked up

_"So what am I looking at?"_

_"The answer"_

_"How is a map of London with what, a dozen arrows on it either a great bear or the answer - to an as of yet unasked question."_

_"You know nothing about astronomy do you?"_

_"Last time I read John's blog neither did you!"_ Victoria teased the young detective, she knew this might be a sore spot for Sherlock; he wasn't use to admitting there were gaps in his knowledge.

_"It wasn't necessary before, it clearly is now. The criminal class seems to be obsessed with the celestial bodies"_

Victoria pulled out her mobile and began googling the combination of Ursa Major and Great Bear she hoped would find the result she was after. At the first result it all made sense to her.

_"Oh I see, so the arrows represent the stars in the sky and correspond to the location of a crime."_

_"A high end jewellery store robbery"_

_"And the pattern indicates where the next one will take place. Who could organise this?"_

_"Had he still been alive I would Moriarty but as he's dead I would have to say the man who's replaced him in the underworld."_

_"Moriarty... That name rings a bell, was there a big case a few years ago?"_

Sherlock couldn’t bring himself to answer and so he remained in silence staring at the ceiling. Victoria had learnt to read a few of Sherlock’s emotions in the short time she had been with him, sadness being one of them.

_"Have you warned the jewellers who are next to be targeted?"_

_"Well there are 2 possibilities, I’ll make sure Lestrade covers them both, I'm about to tell him of the pattern"_

_"Speaking of Greg, how come the yard hasn't seen this themselves, they have a whole team of people who are Trained and paid to look for patterns"_

_"Most of Scotland Yard are incredibly inept, you'll leant this for yourself soon enough"_

_"Most?"_

_"Lestrade is the best of the yard"_

_"Still if the rest of the team isn't much cop what are my tax pounds being wasted on? Sounds like you do a much better job than, them all put together and yet the yard doesn't see fit to pay you!"_ Victoria beamed in the young detective’s direction. 

_"I hadn't realised you held me in such high esteem."_

_"Well I couldn't insult you while you're sat just there could I? And I happen to think you're incredible."_

_"That's not what people normally say"_

_"Is it normally piss off?"_

_"Yeah"_

_"Yeah me too, when you do what we do, you learn to see the puzzle in everything... everyone... some people don't like being seen as such... can actually be a really lonely way to live"_

 

Victoria got up off the floor and made her way to the bathroom all this talk had brought her mood down and she felt like a glass of wine and a long soak in the bath. 


	12. The Exercise

She returned to the living room an hour later, Sherlock was shouting at Lestrade down the phone, something about idiots and blindingly obvious. Victoria chuckled to herself and went to change into appropriate evening wear, which around Sherlock meant no less than what she would wear to work, after all she could be forced to leave the flat at a moment’s notice. She had to be prepared. Victoria was down quarter of an hour later, the shouting had subsided meaning it was safe to cross Sherlock’s path. Sherlock was sat staring at his computer, not typing anything just staring.

_"So Sherlock have you eaten yet?"_

_"What day is it?"_

_"Erm Tuesday."_

_"I'm good for a couple of days yet"_

_"A couple of days?! When did you last eat?"_

_"Sunday."_

_"Sunday?! How have you not eaten since Sunday? How are you still going? How have you not passed out yet? "_

_"I've learnt to reduce my output, everything except the thinking stops.”_

_"But thinking is a costly process, it requires energy! You have to get that from somewhere...."_ Victoria paused to think about what she has just learnt about Sherlock. There was something she couldn't get her head around, she knew thinking was costly for the body, _'3 days without food is bad for it without doing all the thinking that Sherlock does. Sherlock had to be getting a source of sugar from somewhere I mean if he was just relying on ketones it would have had severe consequences to his body by now. So he must be getting sugar from somewhere even if he doesn't admit to it. What does he do when he's on a case? Play the violin and drink coffee...Coffee! The man takes a ridiculous amount of sugar in his coffee that's how he gets his sugar!'_

_"Coffee! You get your sugar from your coffee!"_

_"Well that took you long enough"_ Sherlock was clearly unimpressed with how long it took Victoria to come to her conclusion.

 _"Anyway you need to have some carbohydrates occasionally, you'll find that thinking tomorrow is easier, you might even solve the case without my help. I'm going for Chinese..." 'I'd rather not be alone'_ her thoughts cut across her words before she could stop them

_"Should Mycroft's men come back after me I would rather have you by my side to defend me rather than having to come and find you"_

_"Doesn't sound like you've given me much of a choice, but why would I want to eat if I wasn't hungry?"_

_"Would you rather be here alone? Come with me and we can people observe and compare notes, call it a competition."_

Sherlock’s eyes flashed with interest he loved to stretch the little grey cells and he thought better out loud.

_"Call it an intellectual exercise and I'm there."_

_‘I knew you would be_ ’ Victoria thought to herself that's _clearly how you get Sherlock to do things in this life make it in to an intellectual exercise... That or a science experiment... I wonder how far you could take that could you get him to leave his comfort zone as an experiment, if I kissed him now and told him it was an experiment I wonder how he would respond.’_ Victoria and Sherlock had both got their coats on by the time Victoria had finished her train of thought.

_"So Mr Local where is the nearest Chinese open at this time?"_

_"That would be Mr Weng's at the end of the road stays open till 3; I wonder if you'll be able to tell whether or not it's any good from just the outside"_

Victoria and Sherlock found themselves outside a normal looking Chinese. Sherlock stood perfectly still as he watched Victoria take the shop in from various angles

‘ _Sherlock_ ’ he asked himself _how have you ended up here? At a Chinese in the middle of the night when you clearly have no desire to eat... Are you being manipulated again? No this isn't manipulation; Victoria wouldn't do that to me, would she? After Irene and Moriarty I have to be careful. They were disastrous..._ ’

Sherlock's usual poker face dropped a fraction of an inch; Victoria would have missed it if she hasn't been watching him out of the corner of her eye the entire time.

‘ _Jeez_ ’ she thought ‘ _what’s got him this time?_ ’

" _Hey if you'd rather we can just go back home I’ll order in_ " Sherlock realising Victoria had noticed his slight change in expression put his face back to its steely nature.

 _"Afraid I'd beat you?"_ He teased Victoria attempting to cover up his laps in emotional control.

 _"Absolutely not" 'thought you might need some space to think... Clearly not... Stupid me'_ Victoria internal reprimanded herself, ‘ _I'm just not used to living with someone so closed off, Sam always told me everything... I loved that about him’ V_ ictoria sighed loudly thinking about Sam was still hard. ‘ _That’s the problem with living with Sherlock he's never going to open up to me... He was too hurt in the past, from what I've ears that Moriarty really did him in... Maybe one day I’ll ask him... But hey I've only been living with him 3 days.’_

_"Thinking about him isn't going to make getting over him any easier."_

_"What do you know of emotions?"_

Sherlock said nothing just stared at the shop front _"have you figured it out yet?"_

_"It's the bottom third of the door handle"_

_"Right you are! Dim-sum?”_


	13. The Contest

Sherlock led the way into the small Chinese.

The competition they had planned to have soon ended as there was no thorough fare of people to this part of Baker Street and once they had deduced the people in the Chinese they fell into a comfortable silence. Sherlock decided that although he didn't need food, coffee was a necessity, Victoria brought over the entire sugar pot _"thought this might be just about enough to keep your brain going and satisfy your clearly developed sweet tooth."_

Sherlock shook his head but couldn't keep the involuntary smile from creeping across his face, nor could he remove it fast enough for Victoria not to have seen it.

 _'Well at least he's happy’_ Victoria thought to herself, she hadn’t seen this contented Sherlock before, it was refreshing, Victoria and the young detective began to relax in each other’s presence.

Victoria’s phone vibrated in her pocket.

[Text received from Mum] “Whatever you’re doing with this Sherlock Holmes I suggest you stop now”

[To Mum] “Why?”

[From Mum] “It’s too close to Sam”

[To Mum] “Meaning?”

[From Mum] “Could you not have picked an easier rebound?”

[To Mum] “This isn’t a rebound! How could you even suggest such a thing?”

[From Mum] “I spoke to your dad; he said you’d moved out”

[To Mum] “Because there were too many memories in the old house… and dad isn’t the easiest to live with”

[From Mum] “I hadn’t realised… and tell me about it!”

[To Mum] “Yeah need some distance to process away from everyone, living with an actual machine made sense”

[From Mum] “Just don’t take your eye on the ball, you can’t afford that mistake again”

[To Mum] “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

[From Mum] “Just what I said, you can’t afford to mess your life up again”

[To Mum] “When did I mess it up before?”

[From Mum] “Uni, Sam, Chris, Rose… The list is endless”

Victoria growled under her breath. Sherlock glared at her

“ _Sorry, Mothers hey, who would have them?”_

_“Technically everyone since the start of the species”_

_“Yes thanks… but I bet none of them were patch on mine”_

_“Statistically speaking at least one of them must be”_

_“I bet mine I worse than yours”_

_“Mine was fairly dysfunctional”_

_“Is this a personal fact Mr Holmes?”_

_“Not really everyone would say that their parents are dysfunctional. I haven’t told you anymore than you have me.”_

_“Quid pro quo then Sherlock, mine is worried that living with you is going to ruin my career, life and friendships. My dad who hasn’t spoken to mum in over a year told her I had moved out and got the completely wrong idea about us. Mum thinks this is too close to Sam. She just has an inability to keep her nose out. Grr…”_

Victoria’s rage silently lodged itself in her throat and she wasn’t aware if she was going to scream or cry.

_“You look like you could do with a good scream”_

_“I can feel one building, it’s nestled under my chin; I just don’t know if I could stop it once I’d started.”_

Sherlock knew he had to do something to help her, he didn’t really want to but she would be easier to live with if she worked out some of the pent up feelings that she had. Sherlock recalled something Victoria had said Sunday night.

_“Come on we’re going back to the flat”_

_“What? Why?”_

_“I have a surprise”_

_“I’m sorry what?_

_“You heard me; I'm not saying it twice”_

_“Sounds like you might be about to do something nice, are you feeling ok?”_

_“Better than you are, put your money down and let’s go”_

_“Oh I'm paying for your coffee am I?”_

Sherlock had already swept out of the Chinese with a flourish of his coat.


	14. The Surprise

Sherlock raced back to 221B, he had to get back long before Victoria did, he had something’s he had to find, his only hope was that John hadn’t taken them with him when he had moved out. Racing up the stairs he passed the small package that was laid upon the stairs.

“ _John would have left it in the cupboard”_ he muttered to himself. “A _ll I have to do is attach it to the wall, easy.”_

Sherlock found what he was looking for with incredible ease. Hanging it up next to the smiley face; he had painted many years before, seemed appropriate as they were both about reducing boredom and now he hoped it would calm Victoria down. She was going to be more use to him calm, she would be more receptive to his theories if she was in a good mood. Women in Sherlock’s opinion were too easily manipulated and while Victoria seemed more resilient than most he was sure this would work.

Victoria strolled back to the flat, she had no desire to find out what Sherlock was planning, she didn’t like surprises at the best of times. Victoria forced herself to walk even slower, she needed to recover; just thinking about Sam had hurt her. She wasn’t as over him as she thought she was clearly. ‘ _Maybe that’s what Sherlock saw in me at the Chinese, maybe he’s doing something to help me get over him.. Hmm Sherlock doing something nice… Hmm no… maybe he’s going to experiment on me, crack open my head, stick some senses on it, ask me questions about Sam and see how it affects my brain. God I hope not… I don’t know if I could cope with that right now… Stupid emotions’_ Victoria was doing her best to not cry but her eyes had begun to water and were threatening to spill over.

She had found her way to the flat faster than what she had hoped. Digging out her key she finally managed to get in control of herself and stop herself from crying. Victoria took off her coat at the bottom of the stairs and left it on the coat hook.

Turning around she noticed a small parcel at the bottom of the stairs. Victoria made her way to it, something in her screamed that this parcel could be dangerous, she dug out her leather gloves from her coat pocket, determined not to corrupt too much of any possible evidence. She turned the envelope over slowly and found the address. _‘ahh it’s for both of us, that’s weird, I’ve only been a few days who knows I'm here already? Me, Sherlock, John, Mary, Mycroft and maybe mum, so who sent this’_

Victoria carried the parcel at arm’s length and gingerly made her way up the stairs; she knew she should have put it back in its place and photographed it but if it was going to explode she would rather It took out the flat than the stairs.

Sherlock could hear her coming up the stairs, so he busied himself with making tea, just to see how long it would take Victoria to ask what was going on.

Victoria entered the Living room still holding the package like it was primed to blow up.

_“Err Sherlock do you know what this is?”_

_“Well actually”_ Sherlock span round to look at Victoria. It took him a heartbeat to take in the whole scene. _“Actually I have no idea, where did you get this from?”_

_“The stairs, I couldn’t leave it where it was without knowing what it is. I don’t think it’s dangerous, but it’s addressed to both of us so I don’t want to take any chances”_

_“Both of us?”_

_“Yeah the both of us, as in you and me”_

_“I know what us means, it’s just strange to hear it in this context”_ Sherlock just stared at the package in Victoria’s hands. _“but interesting”_

_“Sherlock, run upstairs and get me my kit, it might not blow up but if it is some kind of message I’d like to know who sent it, means processing the evidence as quickly and effectively as I can, can’t wait for the SOCO to arrive, and as you said most of the Yard are inept.”_

_“You’re confident in your ability!”_

_“As I should be Sherlock, you clearly have never seen me work before, just go and get it all, camera and case.”_

Sherlock knew when he was in the presence of someone intelligent so relented and ran up the stairs.

Victoria’s case was behind her door in a little pile, complete with a crime scene suitable outfit, her camera case, her pile of lanyard I.Ds and a collection of boxes, none of which Sherlock could even guess the contents of.

Sherlock raced down the stairs, kit in one hand and camera in the other. Victoria had turned the small kitchen into an evidence lab, the parcel was sat in the middle of the table and she had placed all the lamps from the living room and the hall in the kitchen. Sherlock had never seen the flat so bright.

_“Bright enough?”_

_“I hope so”_

Sherlock put the equipment on the floor next to the table and stood back to watch the young woman work.


	15. The Parcel

The clock behind Victoria chimed once.

_“1am? When did that happen?”_

_“An hour after it turned 12”_

_“Yes thank you”_

_“Was there anything on it when you picked it up?”_

_“Can you not?!”_ She snapped at the detective. _“This is what I do for a living! Of course there wasn’t - the only mistake I’ve made so far is taking it off the stairs without photographing it. I was worried it would blow up at that point, I would rather it took out this room than the stairs.”_

_“It was never going to explode”_

_“I know that now, I mean it managed to survive the postal service, me carrying it up the stairs wasn’t going to trigger a motion sensor, but it still might have timer on it.”_

Victoria opened her case and found two pairs of latex gloves. Putting on her own she handed the second pair to Sherlock

_“No doubt you’re gonna want to touch it at some point”_

Victoria took a long, thin piece of paper out of her case and placed the small parcel on top. She lifted the parcel to the light and examined every inch.

_“Hmm it’s covered in prints, proving who they belong to could be an issue”_

_“The numerous members of the sorting office and then there’s the post man”_

_“Strange that they sent it in the post why didn’t they just deliver it themselves, they clearly know the address. Might imply that they live far away and this was more economical, would a criminal worry about the cost of a threat?”_

_“Hmm I don’t know. Could be a double bluff, post it and distract the attention away from the local population.”_

_“Hmm... Too many variables at the moment. Here we go.”_

Victoria took a small metal wand from the case.

_“I’m just checking for any metal on the inside, if this goes off I might have to open it and ruin whatever evidence there could have been.”_

_“So that’s a metal detector”_

_“Basically, but the size of a pen”_

The small detector in Victoria hand remained silent.

_“Hmm, guess it’s not a bomb after all.”_

Victoria returned the metal detector and returned to the table.

_“The box looks like I might be able to take the tape off in one go. “_

_“You can get fingerprints from tape?”_

_“Have you never seen the FS service here do that?”_

_“No, Anderson is inept.”_

_“Wet wop, it’s the best stuff ever.”_

_“Wet wop?!”_

Victoria returned to her case and pulled out a small craft knife

_“I don’t make up the words; I just have to use them! It tends to be a lab process actually so maybe Anderson isn’t as inept as what you thought”_

_“Well I’ve never heard him say “send this off to be processed, start with the wet wop””_

_“He might not even know Wet wop exists”_

Victoria paused frozen an inch over the tape of the box.

_“Hang on this isn’t going to be a true criminal case is it? Is this ever going to be discussed in court?”_

_“Probably not, why?”_

_“Just worried about the integrity of the evidence, If I process the box here and we need to run it through the databases how do we get permission to do that?”_

_“Lestrade I guess”_

_“You guess?”_

Victoria turned her back on Sherlock and began labelling a tamper proof bag. The small parcel is sealed away in the bag.

_“Well until you find out for a fact, I'm not doing anymore; we need to do this properly even if it turns out to be nothing.”_

The clock chimed two.

_“Jeez ok I'm going to bed, I have a busy day tomorrow, PhD candidates to interview.”_

_“What about this?”_

_“I can’t just take a day off work; you go and speak to Lestrade tomorrow, when I get home from work well deal with this then. Until then Sherlock promise me you won’t mess with it”_

_“I couldn’t even if I wanted to could I?”_

_“No you couldn’t get into that bag without me knowing. But I need to hear you say the words.”_

_“I promise”_

_‘Now let’s just hope you’re a man of your word huh’_ she dared the young detective to mess with the evidence. He would see a Harrison fit if he did.

 _“Goodnight Sherlock Holmes, and remember no touching”_ she turned her back on the kitchen and made her way to bed.

Sherlock said nothing but made his way over to the kettle.

_*          *          *          *          *_

Victoria woke up the next morning with 5 minutes before she had to leave for work

_‘Oh Shit, emergence crime scene outfit it is then. Thank the lord I inherited mother’s ability to pack for the worst.’_

Victoria practically flew out of the flat, not noticing that either the parcel or Sherlock were anywhere to be seen.

 


	16. The Deal

Sherlock and the parcel were half way across London in the house that Sherlock had grown up in.

_"I will help you brother"_ Mycroft's voice dripped with malice the way only a manipulative older brothers could _. "If you help me with a case"_

_"Urgh why?"_ Sherlock glared at Mycroft.

_"Do you want my help or not?"_

_"Unfortunately yes"_

_"Right then"_

_"I just don't understand how someone as clever as you are can't do it yourself"_

_"It involves too much leg work, I can't be zipping around the country right not with the office in crisis after the vote... But anyway you don't need to know about that do you. You don't concern yourself with problems larger than this rock do you?"_

_"No normally no, there's no conceivable way I could see a case through to court"_

_"I never saw the point in chasing small time crooks around London when I can have a greater influence from my arm chair"_

_"How is the diet going?"_

_"Fine I've lost 4 pounds"_

_"3"_

_"Four!.."_

Sherlock rolled his eyes

_"Fine four"_

_*          *          *          *          *_

Victoria returned to the flat after a long session interviewing PhD students, none of whom she was much older than or who showed much promise.  Between each interview she had attempted to get in contact with Sherlock with no luck, she had to find out what was going on with the parcel. She was keen to do everything herself as her trust in private labs was very low after the latest scandal.

Victoria found Sherlock in his chair with his nose deep in a book. It took her less than a second to notice that the parcel was missing.

_“Sherlock what have you done with the parcel?”_ She gestured to the now empty kitchen table.

_“I dealt with it?”_

_“What do you mean you dealt with it?!”_

_“I gave it to Mycroft?”_

_“Mycroft?!”_ she turned to face him, face reddening with anger. “ _What the hell is he going to do bully it?!!!"_

_“He knows people who can deal with it properly.”_ Sherlock lowered the book in his hands and stared at the young women in front of him, who had now begun to pace backwards and forwards across the door way

_“Jesus Sherlock and we couldn’t?! All I asked you to do was check how the chain of custody would work! I didn’t expect you to run off to your brother,”_ she pointed out the window at the imaginary Mycroft. _“Who I thought, by the way, you hated.”_ She pointed squarely at Sherlock’s chest _"Thank you for helping me see the error of my ways!”_

_“You’re welcome”_

_“Sarcasm, Sherlock. Sarcasm!”_

He looked slightly taken aback at the tone of her words, she was cross with him in a way he hadn’t seen yet, she was madder than when she found out she was being followed. This rage he concluded was to do with the fact that her forensic ability was being called into doubt. This was due to the fact that he had dented her pride, he hadn’t trusted that between her and Lestrade they could get it done without something going wrong, the last thing he needed was for the department to leak the fact that a box had them worried, never mind what the actual results would be. 

He knew that he should explain this to Victoria, in a strange way he owed her an explanation.

_“Why did you do it?”_ Victoria probed him for information.

_“I had my reasons”_

“ _What do we have to do in return?”_

_“We?”_

_“Yes I can’t imagine that my name was missed from the deal that you clearly had to make with Mycroft”_

_“I’m to take on a few cases he sends my way, there is no way I can say no, your name was never mentioned”_ Sherlock failed to mention that Mycroft had demanded that she also be in attendance at each crime scene, meet every suspect and witness and have to process all the evidence herself. He would cross that bridge when it comes to it.  

_“How much oil are we going to have to wash off ourselves each night?”_

_“None, we won’t be rolling around in the stuff”_

_“It’s a metaphor, for like how corrupt is the environment we’re going to be working in?”_

_“I’m not sure, but I’d make sure the boiler I full before we leave for his cases”_

_“Jeez, great”_

Victoria’s phone vibrated in her pocket.

[Text from Natalie] "991! Be at mine, bring chocolate and wine. Its over… xx"

_“Ahh shit, Sherlock I got to go”_

_“Work or play?”_

_“Ha neither girlfriend in trouble”_


	17. The Warning

Sherlock spent a very nervous morning pacing around 221B. Mycroft had given him his word that he would have his results by 1pm today, Sherlock didn’t really believe him but it was better to be safe than sorry.

By 12 o’clock he was completely restless; apprehension and boredom having taken over every inch of his being. Sherlock knew he could handle anything except boredom; nothing was more hazardous to him than boredom. He picked up his violin and began to play.

4 minutes later it was thrown down on to the couch, it wasn’t doing its job, it wasn’t acting as enough of a distraction. All he could think about was what was held in that parcel, what Mycroft may have found out, what he could now be doing to jeopardise Sherlock chances of getting to the bottom of what the real message is.

Victoria wasn’t having much better of a morning, the second day’s PhD students were no better than the first. By the time they got to lunch time  she was ready to kill someone. She stormed off to the FS Staff Room completely lost in her murderous thoughts, ‘ _the next student who comes to me with a proposal to study the migration of insects in Britain; I will personally turn into hamburgers…’_

Finding out that the PhD students thought that she and the dean were having a relationship didn’t improve her mood any. Victoria began throwing cups and spoons around the small kitchen.

_“Victoria calm down! I made you GF cake!”_

_“Natalie! I love you! Oh god you don’t know how good cake sounds right about now.”_

_“I know right, aren’t I just the best?”_

_“Yes you are”_

Victoria had the urge to ask how Natalie was after last night but thought better of it, Natalie was going to be delicate for a long time. Victoria would just have to be on her guard and watch out for the emotional eruption that was likely to happen. Victoria had always been able to control her emotions better than her best friend and it was at times like this that she was thankful of it.   There was one chink in her armour and that was Sam, Victoria had never understood how he managed to win her over. ‘I _t’s time to move on from him’_ she told herself _‘I’m living in a new house and the rate that I’m helping Sherlock I’ll have a new career by the end of the month.’_

“ _Right you and I are going out for drinks this evening”_

_“I dunno Natalie, I’m waiting for some results to come in”_

_“You work cases while you guest lecture?”_

_“I try not to, I did while I was writing my PhD, it was fine at first but after the 2 nd year it all got a bit mixed up. I just  happen to live in the same house as the detective on the case, he couldn’t manage it without me.”_

_“Ah a key cog in the machine huh?”_

_“The most important, we were told that the results would be here by 12”_  Victoria pulled out her mobile “ _which was a full half hour ago and as I haven’t heard anything from Sherlock I’m gonna guess that the results haven’t come in”_

_“Sherlock?! As in Holmes?!”_

_“Yeah, how have we not talked about this yet?”_

_“You do know he’s dangerous yeah ?”_

_“I am aware thanks”_

_“No Victoria I’m being serious now, you know the detective who threw himself off the roof of Barts?”_

_“Yeah vaguely… wasn’t that like 3 years ago? I was in Germany doing my PhD, I only got the basic details”_

_“One and the same, he was found out to be a fraud, faked his death and then ran away”_

_“I’m pretty sure if he was that shady, The Yard wouldn’t still be using him”_

_“Do you know for sure that he working with The Yard?”_

_“I’m not going to dignify that with an answer”_

_“Victoria I just want you to be careful yeah, if you find yourself in over your head I want you to get out, he’s a dangerous man who puts himself and others around him in danger. Please.”_

_“Natalie, there’s nothing he could put me through that I haven’t already been through before, I did time in South Africa.”_

_“Victoria”_ Natalie exacerbated. _“I’m serious, get out. Come to mine. Promise me.”_

_“Natalie”_

_“Victoria promise me.”_

_“I promise”_  

Natalie’s phone vibrated

“ _Don’t think this is over Victoria, I need to go and supervise a lab session we will continue this ASAP”_

 _“I can’t wait”_ Victoria replied drily.

_“I only say these things because I love you, I don’t want to see you hurt”_

_“I know, but there is no need to worry. I promise, now get going. You don’t want to be late do you?”_

Natalie flew out of the small kitchen at lightning speed. Victoria pulled out her phone again. Registering that there were no new texts she began to panic

[To Sherlock] “What’s going on?!”

[From Sherlock] “Mycroft is. – SH”

[To Sherlock] “Or more accurately, isn’t. If the results aren’t back when I get home then we’ll deal with it then ok?”

[From Sherlock] “Fine – SH”

[To Sherlock] “Please don’t do anything stupid until I get home. Work on your experiment.”

‘ _That’ll do the trick, he’ll either understand what I'm suggesting is the most logical choice and go with it. Or he’ll do something really stupid and Mycroft will never give him the results he wants, Jeez that Mycroft can clearly be a piece of work. Note to self never get on Mycroft’s radar in a bad way. I want to be able to go back to case work someday – Mycroft may make that impossible. Oh jeez half one time to go for more interviews. But first - biscuits!’_

Victoria returned to the flat much later than what she had hoped she had spent the entire afternoon in interviews, the Dean had been caught up in a hearing and she had to do all them all.  And as if that wasn’t bad enough the circle line had been shut causing her to take an hours detour around London. By the time she got back to the flat she was ready to explode.

_THUD_

Victoria had got to the hallway when the strange noise had started.

_THUD_

‘ _What the hell is Sherlock doing?’_

_THUD_

_‘If he’s destroying the flat I’m going to murder him.’_

_THUD_

Victoria made her way up the stairs to the living room, where it all became crystal clear. Sherlock was stood in his pyjamas and a dressing gown throwing knives at the dart board he had put up.

_“Boredom or anger?”_

Sherlock didn’t reply but threw the next knife so hard at the wall Victoria was surprised it didn’t go through the wall itself. Victoria took off her coat, hung it up and tried again.

“ _Both then I take it, let me guess, Mycroft hasn’t come through”_

_THUD_

_“Mrs Hudson must be out, that or she’s given up telling you off”_

Sherlock smiled to himself and launched the next knife _THUD_

“ _Do you not have another case you could be working on instead?”_

_THUD_

_“Sherlock why don’t we go and see Mycroft? He can only ignore you in person for so long.”_

Sherlock’s eyes lit up, going to see Mycroft hadn’t occurred to him, he had been too busy being cross to think logically, his mind had become clouded with emotion, negative emotions but emotions none the less. Sherlock swept out of the living room and through the kitchen to where Victoria knew his room was.

Victoria’s phone rang in her bag.

[Text received from: 07827634786] “By now you should have decided to come and see me, I expect you both to be in attendance – MH”

“ _Err Sherlock”_ Victoria hollered in the direction of his room. _“I got a message from what I assume is Mycroft, why have I got to come?”_

Sherlock returned to the kitchen, shirt untucked, jacket and socks in hand.

_“It was part of the deal we made”_

_“You said I wasn’t involved”_

_“Rule 1”_ He set about sorting his shirt out.

_“Rule 1?”_

_“Holmes boys lie”_

_“Well I wish you wouldn’t how am I supposed to protect you if you lie to me?”_

_“I protect myself, being alone protects me”_ Sherlock sat himself on the couch and began the long process of sock and doing up his oxfords.

_“Sherlock, you don’t really believe that do you? Would you honestly say that letting someone in makes you weak? Do you think John is made weaker because of Mary?”_

_“I can’t talk for him, but I’ve always found that being alone protects me”_ Victoria stared at him, there was something written in his face, that she hadn’t seen before, he had let someone in once before and it had all gone pear shaped. ‘ _Tonight’_ she told herself ‘ _I will look for the news coverage of his fall, see if I can figure out what happened. And if not I’ll gently ask John, there is a woman involved somehow…’_

 _“That says something about you”_ Victoria dragged herself out of her thoughts and back into the conversation again, she knew though that the conversation needed to change directions if they were going to get of the flat before midnight. _“I bet you’re even mean to animals!”_

_“I'm not a psychopath”_

_“Sounds debatable…”_

_“I’m sure it would make a fascinating debate but can it wait until after we’ve got our evidence from Mycroft?”_

_“Well hurry up then, in case you can't tell we’re waiting for you, I only took my coat off when I got home.”_


	18. The Explanation

_“Speaking of psychopaths, where are we going to find him?”_

_“What’s the time?”_

_“Erm just turned six”_

_“Then he will be at the Diogenes club”_

_“The what?”_

_“I shall explain on the way”_ He motioned to the door.

_“Taxi?”_

_“No, I have a lot of explaining to do before we arrive we’re gonna need to walk”_

_“You serious?”_

_“Deadly”_ He smiled at her as they both pulled on their coats. Sherlock lead the way out of the flat. Victoria followed behind him.

 _‘I’m going to have to act as both Mother and mediator tonight to these two boys aren’t I? Jeez, I might see if I can get Sherlock to stop for a coffee on route… or a drink, a glass of wine right now would be great, anything to take the edge off what I'm feeling. It’s ok_.’ She told herself _. ‘The situation isn’t yet dangerous, I’m safe. Natalie was wrong Sherlock isn’t dangerous himself, the situations he ends up might be a touch dangerous but they’re not exactly his fault.’_

Victoria only just noticed that they were at the end of Baker Street and that Sherlock was talking at her.

_‘I should probably nod and say yes now…’_

_“Yes Sherlock”_

_“What? Were you even listening?”_

_“No not really sorry… Brain was chatting to itself… anyway… tell me more about Mycroft? What on earth does he do for a living?”_

_“Urgh, you know I hate having to repeat myself”_

_“Sorry”_

_“He is the British Government”_

_“Is the British Government?”_

_“When he’s not too busy being the British Secret Service or the CIA on a freelance basis”_

_“Ok but how. And be nice!”_ Victoria’s face fell. “ _You and him might not get on but he is your brother, if you can’t find anything nice to say about him don’t say anything at all”_

A long repressed memory stirred in Sherlock. He had heard that exact phrase before. Someone used to say that to him all the time and it was always about Mycroft.

  _“Fine.”_ Sherlock inhaled sharply this wasn’t going to be easy; each sentence was going to have to be proof read before he said it out loud. Conversations like this were more taxing than any deduction ever could be.

“ _Mycroft’s position is unique, there has never been anything like it before nor will there ever be again... His mind is incredible you see, he has the tidiest and most organised brain of any human alive with the greatest ability to store facts… The same great powers which I have turned to solving crimes he uses to help the government.”_ Sherlock nostrils flared, no matter how much he hated to admit it this was the truth. Mycroft was better than he was and there was one simple reason as to why.

_“Of any human alive is he cleverer than you?”_

_“Depends on how you define clever”_ Sherlock had put his guard up again.

“ _Sherlock…”_ Warned Victoria in a tone that said ‘you’ll take that guard back down young man – if you know what’s good for you’

Sherlock’s eyes fell to the street; this bit was going to test him. He wasn’t enjoying any of this but Victoria deserved the truth. “ _Mycroft has better powers of observation than me, mother worked on him for longer than she did me”_

_“Your mum taught you how to be observant?”_

_“Left here, yeah at the beginning, she left me to develop myself once she realised I couldn’t match Mycroft.”_ He was still staring at the floor, Victoria found herself peering in all the shop windows. This was a hard conversation for the both of them. They were both walking on egg shells.

_“Wow… ok, and all my mum taught me how to do was cook… so Mycroft **is the** government… explain”_

_“He audits, for the government, all the reports of every department go to him, and he reads them all, processes everything and passes all the relevant information on to the necessary people”_

_“Like a central exchange board?”_

_“Yeah, he is omniscient. Let’s say that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Army, Iraq, Iran and the bimetallic question, he could go to the individual departments and get the information he needs from each of them individually and attempt to put the picture together himself, but he would fail to come to correct conclusion. Only Mycroft can focus them all and say off hand how one would affect the other. They began by using him as a short cut but now he has made himself essential.”_

_“He’s the king of compartmentalising”_

_“Yeah, in that brain of his everything is in its little boxes, and can be handed out in an instant.”_

_“Like your mind palace”_

_“But he has a mind continent”_

_“Wow… yours is still bigger than mine”_

Sherlock decided to ignore that last comment; he needed to get this conversation over fast.

_“His word has decided National policy… more than once”_

_“I’m sorry, what?”_ Victoria eyes widened.

_“It’s what he lives for, he thinks of nothing else … except for when I bring him a problem that I need his advice on”_

_“Jeez and this is the man we’re now in business with”_ Victoria ran her hand through her hair _‘Maybe Natalie was right’_ Her feelings betrayed her, she was afraid of this man all of a sudden, he had control of hundreds of people _“He could have me killed at any point couldn’t he?”_

Sherlock was taken aback by her turn of emotions,

_“No I won’t allow it, finding a new housemate is far too stressful for me to do it again so soon”_

_“Thanks… I think… Why is he not a detective like you are?”_

_“He has no ambition, no drive, if he could be a detective from an armchair he would be but he lacks the energy for the leg work … He would rather people thought he was wrong than go out of his way to prove that he was right …. He is incapable of working out the practical points which must go into a case before it can be presented in court.”_ Sherlock smiled again, Mycroft’s weaknesses were something he was happy to talk about.

_“Not because he’s too stupid too, he’s just too lazy…”_

_“It's more of a hobby to him than a job”_

_“Now the Diogenes Club… What’s the deal there?”_

_“It's a club for men of a certain disposition”_

_“And what disposition would that be?”_

_“The silent kind, there are men in this world who want nothing more than a comfortable chair, decent books and some silence. So The Diogenes club was started, it now contains some of the most unsocial men in London. No member is allowed to acknowledge or even talk to another. This is the only rule. The only exception if you are in the Stranger’s Room. Get caught communicating with someone inside the club three times you are liable for expulsion. Mycroft was one of the founders… The club does have its advantages; the atmosphere is most conductive for thinking”_

_“Well I guess that’s the point, if you can’t speak all you can do is think, if you’re not allowed to communicate, are you allowed to text in the club?”_

_“I don’t know… we shall ask Mycroft when we get there”_

_“How far away are we now?”_

_“We’re just around the corner”_

Victoria sighed, ‘ _I knew he was something when I met him… At least now I’m fully aware of how bad it is.’_ Victoria dug her chin into her scarf, in an attempt to calm herself down. Sherlock knew this was a calming behaviour

“ _Feeling nervous?”_

_“What? No.”_

_“Well burying yourself in your scarf is classic calming behaviour, one you do a lot, you’re either too proud to admit you’re feeling emotional or its subconscious and you do actually believe that you feel ok”_

_“Or the magic third option Sherlock, I know I’m nervous but I don’t feel I can talk to you about it”_

Sherlock brought his finger up to his lips indicating that Victoria needed to be quiet from here on in. They were right outside the Diogenes Club. She nodded in response, hopeful that would be the end of the conversation for now. She didn’t need her mind clouded anymore by emotions; they had come here for answers and answers they were going to get. 


	19. The Diogenes Club

The front door wasn’t locked, Sherlock led the way in Victoria was happy to follow - she was out of her depth. Sherlock pointed at a big ledger in the hallway and they both made their way over to it. They both had to sign in.

Scanning the list Sherlock saw that Mycroft was indeed here and that he had been for some time. Signing his name at the bottom of the list he noted down the time he had arrived and his reason for visiting _. Sherlock Holmes – 19:00 – Silent reflection._ Sherlock handed Victoria the pen he had. Victoria scanned the lost list of people who had signed in today; some of them had been there since the early hours of the morning. Victoria flicked back a couple of pages; she was the only woman to come to the club that she could see. Swallowing hard she turned back to last page and put her name and time. _Victoria Harrison – 19:02 – V..._ She began to write _Visiting Mycroft_ when Sherlock’s hand stopped hers. Sherlock just shook his head and pointed to his entry again. Victoria tilted her head to the side, confusion clouding her face. All Sherlock could do was point at his entry again and hope that she understood what he was trying to say, he would explain himself verbally when he got to the Stranger’s Room.

Victoria read exactly what Sherlock had written and half understood what was going on, they couldn’t admit that they were going to see Mycroft, she just didn’t know why. All she knew was she was in trouble - she had to make the _V_ something that made sense. Nothing that came to mind made any sense. Sherlock shifted behind her clearly becoming impatient with her inability to think. Victoria’s brain had let her down big time. All she had come up with was _Wordless reflection._ It was better than nothing she told herself and began to process of making her _V_ a _W_. _Victoria Harrison – 19:02 – Wordless Reflection._ That will have to do she told herself.

Having realised she had finished writing Sherlock looked at what she had written. He shook his head but smiled at her, it was clearly the best she could do under these circumstances and he wasn’t going to hold it against her, next time she would know better. Sherlock pointed down the long hall. He walked Victoria in front of him she was going to need to be deposited in the Stranger’s Room before he went to find Mycroft. It was risky bringing her here anyway. As far as Sherlock could tell this was the longest that she had been silent recently. It was having an effect on her. Clearly all this space to think was having a negative effect on Victoria’s emotions. The last thing he needed was a clouded companion.

They both walked down the long corridor Victoria couldn’t help but look in each room as they passed; there was room after room of men in either 3 or 5 pieces suites, Sherlock had to be the youngest man in the entire building. She was finding it very difficult to keep her mind clear, she needed to stop thinking; as soon as she had flicked the pages she had seen his name. He had been here at the start of the week. They had been engaged for 9 months and he had never mentioned the Diogenes Club once. _Sam Jackson – 07:00 – Contemplation._ Victoria dug her face deep into her scarf; she knew Sherlock would read the signs luckily for her though he couldn’t say anything about it.

Sherlock opened the only door she had seen and guided Victoria into the large room. She flinched slightly under his touch, it felt totally unnatural. Victoria clocked the gold plaque above the door. “ _The Stranger’s Room”_. At least they were finally where they needed to be.

“ _Whatever is going on Victoria - stop it. You need to focus.”_

_“Yes, thank you, I’m trying my best, just go and find Mycroft, so we can get out of here, it’s not nice in here”_

 Sherlock left without another word, he knew exactly where he was going to find Mycroft. Victoria had been left in big room all by herself, there were two seats facing massive bay windows, Victoria could see a constant stream of people out the window. None of them had any idea what was in this club nor would any of them really care.

‘ _Well let’s see what we’ve got’_ looking around Victoria took in the entire space; it was decorated how a 19 th century living room might have been.  There seemed to be a refined bar on one wall, some of the members of the club weren’t completely retired and often closed deals in this room over a scotch or two. Maybe Mycroft did most of his business from this room. ‘ _Right well seating is going to be important here, these two are going to read into everything possible, so I think I’ll sit by the window meaning Mycroft has the other seat and Sherlock can be guy standing between the two, or should I let them sit down then I can stand between them and mediate… oh god who knows.’_

 Victoria didn’t have long to worry about it, for at that moment Mycroft burst into the room, followed by a rather sheepish Sherlock. Clearly Sherlock and Mycroft had had a wordless conversation and Mycroft had come out on top. This was Victoria’s time to show Sherlock how strong she could be in tough situations even when her emotions were clouding her.

 _“Victoria, welcome”_ Mycroft went to shake her hand. Victoria refused, brought her hands behind her back and straightened up. She might not have been tall enough to look him level in the eye but she was going to make herself as big as possible, she didn’t need to be at the bottom of the pecking order right now.

 _“No brief case or parcel I take it the evidence isn’t here”_ both Holmes brothers eyebrows lowered, neither of them were used to this. Mycroft had to resist the urge to destroy her while Sherlock was caught between high fiving her and jumping between them, the last thing he needed was for this situation to collapse in on itself. He needed them both to be social, he needed the information from Mycroft and he needed Victoria to bounce ideas off.  If keeping Victoria on side meant that he had to protect her from Mycroft as well so be it.

 _“Feeling protective Sherlock?”_ Mycroft sneered at him. Sherlock had subconsciously moved over to Victoria’s shoulder an act that Mycroft hadn’t missed.

“ _Not that I need protecting, thanks_ ” Victoria knew that standing up for herself was the best approach here, they might be in this battle together but she needed to fight her corner just as much as Sherlock did.

“ _Please let’s sit down_ ” Mycroft waved his arm towards the big windows and the 2 chairs that were next to them. Sherlock gestured for her to have the chair on the left, while Mycroft took the one on the right.

‘ _Right’_ He thought to himself, ‘ _help Mycroft with his case, get the evidence and stop Victoria from killing him. Short list of things to do but I don’t think either people here are going to play nicely as it were. Victoria is responding emotionally to something and I rather hope she stops, she needs to be clear for this to work, Mycroft will jump on any emotion she displays, so she better display none’_

_“Now Victoria before you decided to start a war, can I just say; you will get your evidence once you solve The Hans Case”_

_“The Hans case?”_

_“A German national who translates in your office”_ Sherlock began pacing behind the chairs.

_“Very good Sherlock”_

_“What mess has he got himself into?”_

_“I will let him explain himself; he came to me at work asking for help, I didn’t have the time to ask questions I had to go to a meeting of the board”_

_“Not so subtle reminder as to how important you are”_ Victoria rolled her eyes. _“When is he coming?”_

_“He was invited for half past 7”_

Victoria sighed, _“Mycroft could you point me in the direction of the bathroom please”_

 _“Out the door, left, end of the corridor”_ Victoria out of her seat and passed Sherlock

_“Remember don’t say anything and please get it together”_

_“Noted”_

Victoria left the room faster than Sherlock had expected.

“ _Anyone who plans to study mankind; this is the perfect spot to do it, look at all the prime examples, it’s like being at your own private zoo. Take these two for example”_

Sherlock made his way over the now empty seat _,_

_“The medical student and the other?”_

_“Yes what do you make of the other?”_

_“He’s a lawyer, CEO, high member of the government… works in the top 5% anyway. Only that level of employment requires a full five piece suit every day.”_

_“He could be a psychiatrist”_

_“Highly unlikely he has an I.D tag around his neck; psychiatrists work in their own offices no need for the I.D”_

_“Married”_

_“With a child”_

The door to the room creaked slightly as Victoria made her way back in. Neither Holmes looked in her direction.

_“Children Sherlock, children. I can't believe you can't see it in his eyes”_

_“Whose? The high paid what? CEO, whose wife is probably still on maternity leave from work with their second child while the first is of the age that he’s at school most of the day, probably nursery possibly reception.”_

Both men span round in their seats, like Meerkats reacting to a predator.

_“Oh come on I know you understand about the children. I heard what you were saying when I walked in. You know I can play this game too.”_

_“Prove it”_

_“Fine Mycroft. He’s wearing a five piece suit; only one level of formality requires that in a job on a day to day basis and that’s the top, CEO, CFO Major Lawyer something along those lines."_  Victoria pointed to the man in the suit. _"The shopping bags mainly contain nappies, nappies for a new born; these new clear shopping bags are great for snooping. Implies he has a new born child less than 4 months. As for the other child, he’s at least 4 maybe 5. Ben 10 toy in the bag is for a child of at least 4. A child of that age would be at school most of the day if not all day. It’s all obvious really”_

Mycroft began to understand the level at which Victoria could operate.   
Sherlock glanced across at Victoria and smiled; if he could have put a word on what he was feeling it would have been pride. Victoria was doing really well despite her defective state. John had made a wise choice in her and Sherlock was beginning to appreciate her more and more.


	20. The German

A church bell rang in the distance signalling that half past had arrived, it was at this moment that the door to the room squeaked open and what looked, to Victoria, to be a footman was followed in by who she assumed was Hans, the German, the man they were here to see. Sherlock recognised the footman from a previous visit.

The footman announced them.

“Mr André Hans for you Mr Holmes”

“Thank you Smith and your appearance has been noted, you will return to the office this evening for a penalty” Mycroft clearly punished the staff if they stepped out of line. Victoria wanted to know what was going to happen to Mr Smith but didn’t dare ask while he was in the room.

Mr Smith made his way silently out of the room. He had gone very pink from embarrassment. Mycroft’s penalties took weird shapes and the penalty for taking your shoe socks off was a particularly strange one.

Victoria turned her attention to André Hans, the man who had been presented to them. He was the stereotypical Aryan, blond hair, blue eyes, defined cheekbones, the type of jaw that looked like it could give Sherlock’s a run for its money and he was in incredible shape. He shook hands with the men in the room and greeted Victoria in the usual European manner; it had been a few years since she had been greeted such and the second kiss threw her. Hans spoke with a thick German accent but he spoke the English of a well-educated man.

He took Victoria’s now empty seat, Mycroft sat opposite him, leaving Sherlock and Victoria to pace around behind them. His blue eyes sparkled when he understood that Sherlock was interested in helping him.

 _“So what do you do exactly in the office?”_ Sherlock had begun the long process of finding out the facts he needed to make a clear deduction. This was what he did well and he was keen to get this right, be it to prove to Mycroft that he was just as clever as he was, to show off to Hans or to impress Victoria he wasn’t sure yet, he knew that getting it right was the answer though.

 _“I was employed by your government to assist in the translation of documents key to the Germanic-English relations after the last spy scandal_ ”

Mycroft cleared his throat, _“which they don’t need to know about do they?!”_ It was a friendly warning from a hard man.

 _“No of course not”_ Hans, corrected himself quickly, he knew of Mycroft’s reputation in the office as a difficult man and anything he could do to make this go smoothly would be greatly appreciated by both parties.

 _“Is that your only job in office?”_ Sherlock took the lead again, the last thing he needed was the witness shutting down due to Mycroft’s bullying.

_“Oh no, when the Botschafter [ **Ambassadors]** come to England I travel with them as their personal translators.” _

_“So just a lot of translating then?”_

_“I am a gifted linguist Mr Holmes”_ Hans puffed out his chest.

 _“Noch würden Sie lieber taten wir dies in der deutsch”_ ** _[Still would you rather we did this in German?]_** Victoria’s voice croaked slightly as she got used to the hard German constantans again. 

Three pairs of eyes bore into her. Victoria turned slightly pink.

 _“Are you trying to tell me that neither of the famous Holmes boys knows German?”_ Hans chuckled at her remark, _“I did my PhD in Germany; you learn fast, they serve you faster if you ask for it in German.”_

 _“No its fine if there is something that isn’t done justice in English then I’ll use German”_ Hans and Victoria smiled at each other.  _“You will just have to excuse us”_ he nodded at Mycroft and Sherlock.

 _“I'm sure they’ll be fine with the rough translation”_ Victoria chuckled to herself, _“but any German you need to use - do feel free to.”_ Mycroft cleared his throat; this was becoming unnecessary.

 _“Now getting to your problem Mr Hans”_ Sherlock bore his eyes into Hans analysing all of his movements.

 _“Huh, oh yes of course”_ Hans pulled his eyes off Victoria and faced both Holmes boys. “ _First of all Mr Holmes you have to understand that I wouldn’t normally come to a man like you, it’s just that the police in this country didn’t believe me when I attempted to make my report.”_

_“Then why have you come to me?”_

_“Because I know I shall never be ok again until I know what has come of the man with the bandaged face.”_

_“Bandaged face?!”_ Victoria asked urgently.

_“The man I was asked to interview”_

_“Wait!”_ Sherlock threw both hands into the air. “ _Mr Hans I need you to start at the beginning and not be boring”_

_“3 days ago now, so this would be Monday evening, I was approached by Mr Moffatt asking if I would come and translate for him in an important business transaction, Mr Moffatt you see was doing some late night business with an important German whose English was as bad as Mr Moffatt’s German was. He said he needed an interpreter as a matter of urgency and asked if I could go with him. I was more than happy to oblige the man, as you can imagine, providing he invoiced me for the time I spent working for him. He agreed to my conditions and we hastily left for the town car that was waiting for us outside. He said that the business was going to take place in his house in Kensington and that we would be there shortly.”_

_“Was Mr Moffatt in a rush?”_

Victoria shot Sherlock a confused look. ‘ _What a random question to ask, what difference would it make if he wasn’t in a rush?’_

_“I ask as it might be indicative of someone with ulterior motives, if he rushed you out – he was likely to be trying to keep you hidden.”_

_“He was indeed in a rush Mr Holmes.”_

_“Interesting, do continue…”_

_“Mr Moffatt took me to a town car which was parked outside; he sat in the front of the car with the driver – which made me nervous. He gestured for me to sit in the back, I had no choice but to, for I had said to the man that I would help him and I am nothing if not a man of my word. We drove for about 10 minutes when I began to feel light headed and very tired.”_

_“What was the last thing you remember seeing?”_

_“The Thames.”_

_“Well that’s less than useful.”_

_“Sherlock, keep calm”_ Mycroft snapped at his younger brother, manner had to be adhered to.

 _“_ _André, tell me what you remember about when you woke up.”_ Victoria knelt down in front of Hans and took both of her hands in his. _“Close your eyes_ _André and try and remember every little detail.”_ André closed his eyes and breathed in. _“I remember glancing at my watch, it was about 5 past 11.”_

_“André can you remember what time it was when you got in the car?”_

_“I would say about 9”_

_“So that’s a 2 hour drive radius.”_ Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket. _“Keep going Victoria; see if you can get any more location out of him.”_ Sherlock began pacing back and forth behind _André’s_ chair.

 _“Right André”_ Victoria began cooing at the young man again, “ _I need you to close your eyes again, and Mycroft keep as quiet as you can this is only going to work if all he can hear is me”_ Mycroft snorted indignantly, “ _Mycroft please, now André try and go back to that night, try and remember as much as you can about the car itself”_

Mycroft rose up out of his seat and marched over to Sherlock

_“What’s she doing? Silence, the car, how is this going to help? It not going to help us find the house”_

_“Sensory deprivation, a little heavy handed but it might just work. That and associative memories, if he remembers the car he might be able to remember a whole other raft of details that he thought he had forgotten, or never knew he knew.”_

_“Do you think she’s going to be able to manage it or shall I call a professional extractor?”_

_“No I think she’ll be fine”_

_“…He was a middle aged man, brown haired, brown eyed, looked very British”_

_“And where did he take you, don’t force yourself to remember let it come flooding over you, a light, a smell, a sound, let them wash over you.”_

_“The sound in the car changed, we were no longer driving on tarmac, sounded like it does at the beach, as I was rushed out the car, I got the impression of a lawn and trees on each side of me, but whether or not I was just in a big house or in the true countryside I couldn’t tell you. And then I was in the house, it had a massive hall, nothing was properly lit though and smelt like it had all been in storage for a long time, it smelt of Mottenkugeln.”_

_“Smelt of what?”_ Sherlock hadn’t judged his volume properly as he half shouted at Victoria. André opened his eyes, Mycroft jumped at the noise, shook his head and rushed out of the room, he had to go and fix the mess he knew Sherlock shouting would have caused.

_“Mothballs now calm down! It isn’t going to help anyone if you start shouting”_

_“I know I hadn’t meant it”_ Sherlock snapped back at her, he hadn’t meant to shout so it was illogical for her to scream at him.

 _“A man opened the door”_ André continued not entirely aware of the conversation in the room, more lost in his own memory than the room he was currently in.

_“A man you say André, would you say he was a butler or a friend of Mr Moffat”_

_“Oh a friend, there was a malice about his nature which screamed accomplice rather than servant.”_

_“André what did the friend look like, what did the friend say to you?”_ Victoria went over to her coat and pulled out a notepad, returned to stand next to Sherlock and poised herself to take notes.

_“”He was a small, mean-looking, middle aged man with rounded shoulders and glasses.”_

_“Was there anything distinguishing?”_ Sherlock cut across the interview. He needed more about the men they were involved with; they were the only way to get to the man.

_“He had a pair of glasses”_

_“That is not distinctive”_ Sherlock rolled his eyes.

_“Sherlock leave him alone, André ignore him, tell me what the man said”_

_““Is this Mr Hans? Said he. “Yes.” Replied Mr Moffat. “Well done, well done, no offence Mr Hans, if you do exactly what we say you’ll live to tell the tale, pull any tricks and you’ll end up in the pond.” I’m not going to lie to you Victoria he scared me, he might have only been small but I felt like he could kill me. “Why am I here?” I asked “You’re here to ask a German gentlemen a few questions, we need the answers he has” At this point he rounded on me “But say no more than what you are told to say or you will have wished you were never born.”_

_“Then what happened”_

_“As he spoke he opened a door and showed the way into a room which appeared to be very richly decorated. Having said that though, the only illuminated furniture seemed to be a large table and two chairs, the older man motioned that I should sit in one, Mr Moffatt reappeared a minute later, through a different door, leading a man with him, who was wearing a dressing gown and clearly unable to bare his own weight and so moved really slowly.  As he came to the table and so under the light I finally managed to see him clearly”_

_“What did he look like?”_

_“He was, what is the saying, white as snow”_

Victoria nodded her head.

 _“He was so very skinny, it looked like he hadn’t eaten in months, and his eyes were bright, like yours Mr Holmes, like a man whose spirit is stronger than his body. But the most shocking thing_ Victoria was the big plasters stuck to his face obscuring all the distinguishing features” André smirked at Sherlock. “The one over his mouth and lips was the most terrifying of all, he couldn’t eat with it in place, and clearly they weren’t feeding him. “Do you have the paper” cried Mr Moffatt, “are his hands loose? You are to ask the questions Mr Hans and he will write the answers. Ask him first if he is happy to sign the papers?” The man’s eyes burned fiercely. “Never” he wrote in German. “On no condition?” I asked. “Only if I see her married in my presence with a German priest that I know” “ _You know what awaits you then?” “I don’t care” As you can imagine this went on for some time.”_

_“When you had a neat little idea?”_

_“Yes Mr Holmes, I started to add some of my own questions, my companions clearly knew no German and so I began. “You can do no good by this. Who are you?” “I care not. A stranger” “Your fate will be upon your own head. How long have you been here?” “Let it be so. Three weeks.” “The property can never be yours. They are starving you aren’t they?” “I would rather it was sold than given to you. They are indeed.” “You shall go free if you sign it. Do you know where we are?” “I will never sign. No idea” “You are never going to see her again. What’s your name?” “I’ll believe that when she tells me. Terbuyken-Gorny” “You shall see her if you sign. Where are you from?” “Then I shall never see her again. Dusseldorf”  
Another five minute and I might have got the whole story out of him but before I could ask the next question, the door opened and in walked a woman. “Harold” she said, speaking broken English with a thick German accent “I couldn’t stay up there anymore, it’s lonely and dark, Oh my god its Alex” These last words were in German, on hearing her words the man opposite me tore the plaster from his lips and cried out “ Erika, Erika” and rushed into the woman’s arms. Their hug was short because Mr Moffatt pushed them apart and pushed her out of the room, the older man pulled Mr Terbuyken-Gorny out of the room. For a moment I thought of fleeing but before I could get anywhere the older man had reappeared and was staring at me. “That will do Mr Hans” he hissed, “As you can see we have taken you into our confidence, we shouldn’t really have trouble you but our friend who helped with negotiations before had to be replaced. We needed someone to take his place and you can highly recommend. Here is 500 pounds” he said handing me 10 50 pound notes, “which I hope is a sufficient fee. But remember if you utter a single word of any of this to anyone I shall end you. And we always know if someone needs to be ended. Now you will find the car waiting, please leave.” As you can imagine I rushed out of the house at lightning speed eager to put the whole thing behind me, I got in the car and came round outside Croydon station, “you will get out here, couldn’t risk taking you into London, any attempt to find us again Mr Hans and you will be eliminated.”_

_As you can imagine I was eager to get home and call the police, so I jumped into the next train and made my way home into London. There ends my adventure Mr Holmes.”_

Mycroft returned to the room and scowled at his brother, Sherlock had clearly caused an upset earlier. Mycroft sat back down in his still vacated seat.

“I came to work the next day and told your brother Mycroft and then police.”

Victoria didn’t know what to say, she had never heard a story like that, and it was all taking its toll trying to sort out the important facts.

_“Mycroft what efforts have been taken so far?”_

_“Adverts in all the newspapers, main blogs with no replies so far.”_

_“What about the German liaison office?”_

_“I asked they know nothing and I have heard nothing”_

_“A call to the German police then, someone must know something about the men involved.”_

_“Will have to be done in the morning Sherlock, no one is going to be in the office this time of night not everyone has your boundless enthusiasm for catching criminals.”_

_“Wait until morning ?!? How can you suggest such a thing, Mr Hans’ life is at risk.”_

_“Sherlock there is nothing to be done, leave it till morning”_ Mycroft rose up out of the seat he was sat in.

 _“Sherlock”_ Victoria chipped in _“Its even later in Germany than It is here, wait until 7 am their time and call them, be the first in the queue, but there is genuinely nothing we can do now, please can we go home, some of us are really tired.”_

_“Victoria I don’t need sleep”_

_“Yes Sherlock but I do! Now I am going home, you can either sit here in the dark on your own; bare in when we leave Mycroft will be locking this room behind him. You’re either coming home with me now or you’re staying here all night by yourself, make your choice now.”_

_“Fine, Mr Hans I shall be in touch. Victoria lets go”_

_“Goodbye Mycroft, Auf Wiedersehen André.”_


	21. The Journey Home

Sherlock swept out of the room without a second word, Victoria followed behind him; she had got to the Regent Street taxi rank before she caught up with him.

_“Victoria I know you thought you needed to do that, but you were wrong, I was trying to get some enthusiasm out of Mycroft. The only way you can get him to take a case seriously is to make it sound like he’s wrong”_

Victoria buried herself into her scarf, she did know what to say; it felt like she was being told off for doing something wrong, something that she didn’t know was wrong.

Victoria couldn’t find the words to say what she wanted, she was caught between apologising and flying off the handle, he hadn’t thought to include her in the plan; that was the second time he had shut her out of knowledge that could’ve made things easier.

Sherlock hailed the closest cab and led Victoria in.

_“Where to folks?”_

“ _Baker Street please”_

_“Sherlock, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything I need to know going in to it; knowing how to engage Mycroft before I got to the club would have made the whole thing more productive for the both of us. You do see that yes?”_

_“Yes, but you need to learn to trust that I know what am I doing”_

_“Sherlock I can’t just blindly follow you around, you need to include me, the only way this is going to work is if you see this as a partnership rather than a leader and a follower.”_

_“Victoria, at times like that I need you to follow me, it’s the most logical solution to the problem.”_

Victoria sighed, “ _Ok Sherlock only if you agree that as soon as the following is over, you explain why I needed to follow you, why you couldn’t include me in the plan, why it was so important to keep it a secret.”_

_“It’s not so much me keeping it a secret, as it is me continuing the conversation in the most logical direction, it’s not my fault you can’t keep up.”_

_“Sherlock! We wouldn’t have even been there if you hadn’t run off to Mycroft in the first place; there couldn’t have been anything in the parcel that I couldn’t have dealt with.”_

_“Victoria boasting and double negatives don’t suit you.”_

_“Thanks for that (!) Sherlock this isn’t easy for me, I’ve been thrown into a world that I didn’t even know existed, can you just appreciate that?”_

_“It took John a while to adjust as well. His biggest problem was the dead bodies and pointless death.”_

_“Please tell me you realised that, that was because he was a solider he had seen enough dead bodies and pointless deaths already, he didn’t need them at home where it was supposed to be safe as well.”_

Sherlock lowered an eyebrow in Victoria’s direction as if to say ‘of course I did’

 _“Well God knows I've seen my fair share of dead bodies before now. I’ve seen some of the worst that humans have done to each other, although having said that I haven’t heard a story like Mr Hans’ before”_ Victoria decided that if this conversation wasn’t going to go anywhere then she was going to have to leave the conversation behind and talk about Hans for a bit.

Sherlock needed the ball back in his park, he could sense that Victoria was trying to get emotions out of him and he didn’t have he wanted to give. How was he supposed to explain.

_“The Hans case is an interesting one, there can only be one logical outcome.”_

_“Such as?”_

_“You must never theorise before you have all the facts, you begin to twist facts to fit the theory rather than the theory to fit the facts.”_

_“Yeah but you must have an idea”_

_“As do you if you think about it properly, you have had all the facts that I have, you know exactly the same things I do, so you should be at the same point of deductions as I am”_

_“Here we go folks”_

The cab pulled up outside 221B the combination of autumn and late evening made the street light bounce in an almost magical way. This was Victoria’s favourite time of year, winter was too cold and summer was too hot.

Both Victoria and Sherlock made their way into the hall way. Mrs Hudson was there to greet them.

_“Sherlock Holmes! I expect you have a good excuse for the wall.”_

_“Well Sherlock I’m going to leave you to explain this one, I’ll put the kettle on shall I?”_

_“You might as well.”_

Victoria turned her back on the now arguing Mrs Hudson and Sherlock and made her way up the steps to the flat. It was later than she had hoped and if she was going to do her Sherlock research tonight she would need to start soon, ‘the only problem’ she told herself ‘is that I have no idea where to start, I mean do I start with the Barts thing or do I go further and try and find out the whole story, well as much of the story as the media knows.’ Victoria dropped her coat on the end of the chesterfield and made two cups of strong tea, left Sherlock’s on the kitchen and settled herself down in her seat.


	22. The Paracetamol

The shouting downstairs subsided and Sherlock ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time; Mrs Hudson had been placated and he wanted to get back to the case. Mr Hans was in trouble and it was up to him to help, _‘well’_ he reminded himself _‘technically Victoria and me, thanks to Mycroft’s medalling she has to come along for this dangerous ride._ ’ The need to protect Victoria was stronger than his need to protect John had been. There was something that still didn’t make sense to Sherlock, he still didn’t understand why Victoria had gone all strange at the club, it was only Mycroft after all and she had handled herself perfectly with him last time, Sherlock began to toy with the idea of researching Victoria, that way he could have the answers he needed without having to have an awkward emotionally charged conversation that neither of them would enjoy.  Having come to the conclusion that when Victoria went to bed that night he would start his investigation into her, he burst into the small flat causing Victoria to jump in her seat and spill some of her tea on her seat.

 _“Jeez, Sherlock”_ Victoria leaped out of her seat and wiped it down. _“Sherlock… why is my laptop under this seat?”_

 _“I borrowed it this morning”_ Sherlock deposited his coat behind the door, fetched his tea and sat in his seat opposite her.

_“What was wrong with yours?”_

_“It was in the kitchen”_

_“But so was mine!”_

_“Yours was closer”_

_“By what half an inch?!”_

_“Inches….”_ Sherlock rolled his eyes, no scientist used inches anymore.

Victoria sighed giving up, “Sherlock. Now do you want to explain the Hans case to me?”

_“What do your notes say? I’m sure you can put it together yourself.”_

Victoria crossed the room to the sofa, found the note book from inside her coat pocket and began to flick through the pages. Sherlock found himself going over to  the other side of the room and looking over Victoria’s shoulder; only to be presented with a page of squiggles.

 _“Short hand?”_ He enquired with a touch of surprise in his voice. _“When did you find time to learn short hand?”_

Victoria span round to face Sherlock.

_“Are you trying to tell me you can’t read and write short hand?”_

_“I don’t need to; I can remember all the important details”_

_“Well then you don’t need my notes then do you.”_  Victoria snapped her note book closed, turned her back on him and returned to her seat.

 _“No I don’t but you do, you have missed all the important case defining details and some of the more unobvious facts that I had hoped you would have picked up on by now.”_ Sherlock continued his speech with his back turned to her turning around to punctuate his last word.

 _“Sherlock, I don’t know, I don’t even know where to start”_ Victoria rubbed her right temple with her hand, it was getting late and she was getting a headache.

_“Yes you do, it’s so blindingly obvious, I myself only need two questions answered and the whole case will be solved”_

_“Instead of standing there gloating Sherlock do something useful and make me a cup of tea”_

_“Do what?!”_

_“Do you want me to solve this case or not?”_

_“Yes, of course I do, it will do your reputation the world of good having a real case under your belt.”_

_“A real case?! What do you mean by that? Are you trying to say that all the work I've done up to this point has been worthless?”_

Sherlock didn’t rise to her bait, he knew she had a headache coming and making her angrier than what she already was wasn’t going to help, help her solve the case or feel better.

Victoria closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the little light that was in the flat, her head had begun to pound. Sherlock gently moved into the kitchen, _‘make her the tea’_ he told himself _‘and clearly she needs some paracetamol, she needs to be pain free to work this out and tell me what I need to know.’_

Sherlock returned with two cups of tea to Victoria who was still sat with her eyes closed but now with her hair pulled out of the bun it was in.

“ _That won’t have helped, here this might”_ Sherlock handed her the one of the cups that he had, _“and these.”_ He pulled a packet of paracetamol out of his jacket pocket.

_“What won’t have helped? How many of these am I allowed?”_

_“Taking your hair down, the pressure on the outside of your head has no correspondence to the osmotic balance inside your skull.”_

_“I know that”_

_“Oh and as many as you like, the chance of you overdosing on them is highly unlucky.”_

_“I know that too, toxic dose for someone my size is about 10 grams, I do remember the basics of toxicology thank you. I just struggle to recall data when I feel like this”_

_“I can’t pretend I know what that’s like”_

_“Yes thank you Mr-I’m-A-Robot Holmes, please just turn the light down and talk me through the case, it might be the only way I solve it tonight.”_

Sherlock began a furious internal debate; on one side he wanted her to solve the case on the other he didn’t want to walk her through it, for his plan to work she needed to needed to work this out on her own. _‘Just don’t feed her the main points let her come to the conclusion herself’_

Sherlock turned on one of the small lights that Mrs Hudson had left in the living room and switched off the main light. Victoria gave an audible sigh when he did. He sat himself in his seat across from her. He took a swig of his now lukewarm tea.

_“Right then, let me tell you the story of Mr Hans..”_

Victoria rolled her eyes.. “ _Only you”_


	23. The Research

Victoria woke to the sound of Sherlock playing his violin, it had taken her and Sherlock hours to comp­­lete the Hans story and she had been feeling so terrible by the end of it that she fell asleep on the Chesterfield downstairs. Pulling herself into a sitting position she realised that it was a half past 8,

_“Sherlock, did it ever occur to you to wake me up?”_

_“You hadn’t reached the optimum amount of sleep yet, you would have been highly irritable”_ Sherlock lowered his violin to lock eyes with the young women, his eyes a mixture of confusion and apology

_“Well guess what Sherlock”_

_“You are irritated anyway?”_

_“No shit, Sherlock”_

_“Rude. It’s not my fault you can’t regulate your body clock better.”_ Sherlock began playing again, he had done the most logical thing and now she was being rude about it, in his mind he was right to let her sleep, she needed it, last night involved a high level of deduction and she was tired.

 _“Yes I know, sorry, I now have half an hour to get to work”_ and with that she flew up the stairs to her room, pulled on something ‘lab friendly’

Her phone vibrated on her desk,

[Text received from John] I’m still up for today if you are.

[To John] Yeah, thanks figured it was better to get it from someone who was there, than come to the wrong conclusion myself. Somewhere with lots of wine?

[From John] Yeah! I’ll meet you after you’re done at Uni J

The now dressed Victoria was back downstairs before Sherlock had finished the movement he was playing.

_“There’s been a car accident on the Euston road, you’re gonna want to take the tube.”_

_“I’ll blame my lateness on the traffic, say I got stuck. Thank you”_ Victoria shot him an apologetic smile before dashing out of the flat, he crossed over to the window to watch her leave.

Although he had decided yesterday to investigate her between the case, the story and her falling asleep where and when she did, he hadn’t been able to do any research on her. He put his violin away and went to retrieve his laptop from the far side of the kitchen.

On his way back through the kitchen he flicked the coffee machine on, settled down in the kitchen and waited for the machine, although he didn’t really need the caffeine, it was one of the few things in life that he genuinely enjoyed. Coffee now in hand he sat down and started with the most basic of searches; Google, Victoria Harrison had all the basics of someone in this day and age; facebook, twitter, tumblr, pintrest. ‘ _Urgh’_ thought Sherlock ‘ _pages and pages of useless trivia, none of this is going to get me any closer to an answer. Right, let see, what do I know about her already, 26, Forensic Scientist. Well let’s go for her university profile. ‘After completing her Masters in Forensic Entomology and Forensic Practice Victoria travelled to Germany to complete her PhD. Between 2009 and 2012 whilst completing her PhD she was called upon by the German police to assist with cases. On her return to England she began working with Scotland Yard and the forensic institute and has been involved in major cases. Most recently she assisted with an international case that took her to South Africa. At the start of 2013 she began lecturing here._

_Demonstrator: Biochemistry, Entomology and Forensic practice._

_Unit leader:_

_Level C: Entomology and Crime Scene Practice._

_Level I: Entomology and Advanced Crime Scene Practice._

_Level H: Entomology and Forensic Practice._

_Level M: Entomology, Lab Practice, Crime Scene Practice, Forensic Practice.’_

_“Jesus”_ Sherlock exclaimed to no one. _‘No wonder she was upset with me when I gave Mycroft the parcel. None of this explains why she was so weird at the club, let’s dig a little deeper.’_

Ten minutes later Sherlock found himself on the government database, a piece of software he had stolen from Mycroft in Sherlock’s mind he needed it more than Mycroft did.

His computer flashed up her driving license, birth certificate, her passport, her phone records, her medical records and all of her data from Germany. Sherlock smiled to himself these days the government had become big brother and it made his job rather easy. At the bottom of the list _‘Marriage Licence application’_ Sherlock’s eyebrows rose, he knew she had been engaged, he had deduced as much. He had never realised though that they were that close to actually getting married. Victoria had called it off; she had called off a wedding, a wedding that took a lot of planning and money. Sherlock recalled how much John and Mary had, had to plan for their wedding. ‘ _Now’_ he told himself _‘Who was the man’_ Sherlock opened up the application. Sam Jackson that was what the man was called. ‘ _Sam Jackson, Sam Jackson’_. The name sounded familiar, Sherlock wracked his brains as to where he had come across it, but he came to no conclusion. The last place he had to try was the Club, this had been were Victoria had gone all funny, so this is where he was going to find Sam Jackson.

Sherlock ditched his dressing gown on the kitchen table and wrapped himself in his jacket and coat, sped out the flat and hailed a cab.

His journey to the club was a slow one; the traffic had been backing up for hours now. He loaded the police app on his mobile, a piece of software lifted from the criminal classes. The accident had been announced on the police radio as a hit and run, and that a large number of Crime Scene specialists would be attending the area soon. Sherlock himself hadn’t yet been called by Lestrade so he carried on with his current task.

Arriving at the club he knew where he had to look first, the ledger. If he was going to find Sam Jackson anywhere that would be where it would be; anyone who comes through the front doors has to sign the book.  


	24. The Conversation

Victoria spent all morning shouting at first years all who were proving to be about as much use as a snail in a lab. She had never been happier to see her masters students come 3 pm.

Come 5pm John was waiting for her just outside the main entrance.

_“By the look of you, I take you haven’t had a good day.”_

_“Ha you could say that. I never remember being that inept in my first year, but then again I was always incredible”_

John embraced the young women, for all her bravado John knew there was someone gentle and caring inside and he knew that living with Sherlock could kill her.

 _“So where are we off to Dr Watson”_ The emphasis on the word doctor came out more forced that Victoria had intended, “ _I think that may have come across more sarcastic than I meant it to, sorry_ ”

 _“I used to live with Sherlock remember. I was thinking just a bar somewhere.”_ John offered Victoria his bent arm, linking arms with the doctor they headed deeper into London _. “I might ask Mycroft to join us if that’s alright.”_

“ _Mycroft?”_ Victoria faced him, confused.

_“He has the files, if we’re going to talk, we might as well talk about everything. It’s nothing to worry about”_

_“Worry… You have met him yeah?!”_

_“Yeah, underneath his hard outer shell he does really care about people, namely Sherlock, I mean he would have had to…”_

_“Yeah I guess. They are related after all, blood is thicker and all that.”_

Victoria and John had just rounded a corner and come upon the Criterion Bar. Thinking that this was the perfect place John pushed Victoria into the filling bar, Friday night hadn’t quite begun yet and they were going to get a few hours deep conversation in before it got too loud for them to think. Victoria found a small table in the corner while John ordered them a bottle of wine. Returning to the table with three glasses, he pulled out his phone and called Mycroft asking him join them in an hours’ time.

 _“That gives us time to do the stuff….”_ John’s embarrassment cut end the end of his sentence away. He pulled the cap off the bottle and poured them both large glasses.

_“Thank you for everything.”_

_“It’s fine, if you plan to live there medium to long term you need to know everything, you need to know what your letting yourself in for._ ” At this John took a long swig from his wine glass.

_“There’s just so much I want to know, the man is an enigma”_

_“Wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a question.”_

_“I don’t think that’s the saying John.”_ Victoria chuckled lightly, John couldn’t help but laugh too, and the tension between the two of them seemed to melt away. They both swigged from their glasses and relaxed even further.

_“I think the place I have to start is… Has Sherlock ever been in a relationship, ever?”_

_“In the 18 months I lived with him, except for Irene Adler I don’t think he was ever interested in anyone, male or female.”_

“ _Irene Adler_?” Victoria raised an eyebrow,

_“She was an international criminal, gave our Sherlock a real run around, had him proper chasing his tail.”_

_“Hmm… I’m fairly sure that says something about him.”_

_“Can I ask…? Why do you want to know?”_

_“I just have to explain to him about Sam… Sam and Mycroft both go the Diogenes Club; I just wanted to find some ground to build the explanation off”_

_“And Sam is your ex…”_

_“Yeah we were engaged, had the wedding basically sorted, but while I was in Africa I found he was having an affair with another women, I came back to London and found them both in bed together.”_

_“Jeez I’m sorry.”_ John reached for her hand and gave it a small squeeze. Victoria gave him a half smile in return.

_“It's fine honestly. Gonna take time but I’ll get there you know…?”_

_“Yeah I can’t imagine that’s easy to get over.”_

_“I’ll get there though John, work is helping honestly”_

_“Good.”_

_“Now John I have the big one, does Sherlock ever do any of the sodding house work?”_

_“Ha, no! he wouldn’t even let Mrs Hudson dust…”_

_“Really?! I bet she loved that”_

_“There were times when we both wanted to kill him… and I almost did once…”_

_“Tell me…”_

_“It might be easier with Mycroft here he has the entire story.”_

As if he knew he was being talked about Mycroft walked in the front door. John waved in his direction and Mycroft floated over to them.

_“John you should know I don’t enjoy doing these things in places like this”_

_“I don’t enjoy doing it full stop.”_ John had given up his seat to Mycroft.

_“Hello again Victoria, how goes the case?”_

_“You’re solving cases already?_ ” John pointed in Victoria’s direction.

 _“No thanks to this man.”_ Victoria pointed at Mycroft. _“He and his brother made a deal so now I have no choice but to get into their dangerous world.”_

_“Mycroft, why didn’t you tell me this before?”_

_“It was unnecessary John”_

John’s eyes darted between the two of them, one of them was going to break but he was unaware of who would first.

 _“So Victoria, what can I help you with?”_ Mycroft rested his elbows on the table and his head in his hands, every inch the dangerous Holmes Victoria knew him to be.

_“I want to know everything”_

_“Everything?”_ Mycroft cocked his head in an all to knowing way.

_“Ok well just the important things that are going to affect my life.”_

_“Maybe start with Moriarty…”_ John cut across both of them before Mycroft had a chance to reply.

 _“Moriarty,”_ Mycroft began. “ _Was the most brilliant criminal the country has ever seen, and so we needed to get rid of him… We could never have predicted the lengths he would go to or how far we would have to go in retaliation. To cut a very long and boring story short, I pretended to throw Sherlock to Moriarty. Moriarty feeling that he had the upper hand killed himself and so forced Sherlock to fake taking his own life.”_

_“This would be the time that he threw himself off the roof of Bart’s”_

_“This would indeed, safe to say that Sherlock didn’t die, didn’t even get a scratch, wish the same could be same about his coat, he flooded that thing with blood. Took my cleaners a whole month to get it all out.”_

_“Getting back to the story…why did he not come straight back afterwards?”_

_“He had to go underground, to protect everyone, Moriarty might have been gone but there was still a price on his head, on John’s head, he spent the next two years fighting Moriarty’s network. I found him and brought him back to England to help with a terrorist we were dealing with here.”_

_“And how did you take this?”_

_“How’d you think? Badly, I’ve never been angrier with anyone ever, I hit him more than once”_ John flushed at the memory. _“God that man, decided to surprise me the night I was going to propose to Mary.”_

 _“Yes that was unwise of him wasn’t it?”_ Mycroft smirked.

_“Yes it was, then the whole bomber thing happened, I accepted I was going to die, said some nice things about him and he just laughed at me.”_

_“He laughed?”_ Victoria reached out for John’s hand, just as he had done earlier, _“Your brother can be an arse you know?”_

_“I’ve heard him called much worse, and yes I do”_

_“But you managed to move on with your life didn’t you John?”_ Victoria searched for his eyes with hers; John was fixated on the floor tiles and refused to look up. _“You have Mary don’t you? Hey I couldn’t get a guy to settle down with me could I?!”_

 _“Don’t do that.”_ John shook his head,

Mycroft’s phone rang in his pocket, _“Well this is the PM. I'm going to leave you to it”_

 _“Ok, thank you for being honest with me Mycroft”_ Victoria shock his hand, _“And Sherlock will call you when we know more about the case.”_

 _“See you around”_ John muttered, exhaustion getting the better of him.

_“More wine John or is time to go home?”_

_“It's probably home time; I told Mary I’d be home ages ago. She’ll probably start worrying soon.”_

_“That’s fine, let’s go get taxis”_

John and Victoria both hailed separate taxis. Victoria pulled John into a hug before she let him go.

_“Thank you for that John, I know it can’t have been easy. At least I know what I'm up against now”_

John practically fell into his taxi, Victoria watched him go before she climbed into hers, ordering the taxi driver to take her home, she began processing everything that she had just heard.


	25. The Drinks

It was late when Sherlock got back to the flat; his search for Sam Jackson hadn’t got him very far. The records at the Club only got him to the address that he had shared with Victoria. Having reached a dead end Sherlock went to assist with the hit and run he had heard about earlier. The recently reinstated Anderson had once again missed everything of significance. And it wasn’t long till Sherlock had provided all the information needed for the bolero to go out. An hour later the man was in custody and the yard was flush with another recent success. Lestrade had ordered Sherlock back to the flat to make sure Victoria was ready for post case drinks, Sherlock couldn’t really see the point but Lestrade insisted it was a social norm he couldn’t opt out of.

Sherlock burst into the flat, Victoria was sat crossed legged on the floor, wine glass in one hand, red pen in the other, headphones blearing something Sherlock couldn’t make out. Clearly he told himself she was marking coursework. Sherlock took a moment to just observe the women and took this moment to make a few more deductions about her, within half a second Victoria was surrounded by a dozen or so words Sherlock’s mind’s eye had projected around her: _eldest child, protective, guardian, long sighted, logical, caring, my comfort, secret dog lover,  baker, clever, romantic, disillusioned, violist._ Sherlock shook his head, _my comfort;_ the phrase made him uneasy. Victoria being a comfort to him only meant more confusion and trouble for him further down the line, he could handle Victoria being a comfort to other people, other people relying on her was fine but not him. Sherlock looked Victoria over again expecting another deduction, another came: _Secret_. ‘ _Well that’s obvious’_ he told himself ‘ _her secret is Sam, she doesn’t know that I know the true extent of their relationship.’_

 _“How long have you been here?”_ Victoria had clearly already had slightly too much to drink, the end of each word wasn’t as snappy as it usually was.

_“About 5 minutes, Lestrade sent me to make sure you are ready, you are to join us for a non-negotiable non-opt-out-able post case drink, but I see there may be no point as you seem to have started yourself.”_

_“Yes Sherlock I’ve had… Erm I’ve had…. About half a bottle in total... God I wouldn’t like to do that calculation…”_

_“No I can imagine your neurons have stopped firing in a pattern that is going to process any information given to them.”_

_“Surely that’s the best time for me to meet people from your past, that way I can’t make any deductions about what you got up to with them in the past.”_

_“Ok now you’re not really making any sense. But please gather what little senses you have left, we really have got to get ready.”_

_“Why?”_ Victoria climbed gingerly to her feet.

“ _Because as I said before it's non-negotiable and non-opt-out-able”_

_“Yeah, yeah I heard you the first time,”_

_“Then you realise that you have no choice but to join us. And anyway the drink is happening here.”_

_“And how on earth did that happen?”_

_“Lestrade invited himself over, I can’t ever imagine why.”_ Sherlock rolled his eyes, he knew why Lestrade wanted to have the drinks at 221B; Victoria. Lestrade wanted to get everything he could out of Victoria. Lestrade wanted answers and he wrongly thought that Victoria could give him.

Victoria made her way into the kitchen and began locating glasses for the people about to arrive, she picked up one of the tea towels that she knew was both clean and safe to use on glass and threw it in the detectives direction with a look that screamed, ‘ _if I'm going to have my evening interrupted with this nonsense then you’re going to help with the set up.’_ Sherlock didn’t move a muscle.

_“So when you said non-negotiable and non-opt-out-able, you really meant it was happening here whether I liked it or not so I should prepare myself for the insurgence of people to **our** sanctum sanctorum.”_

_“In essence, yes”_

_“Well then you helping me with the prep for this is non-negotiable and non-opt-out-able, if you don’t want me washing up the wrong thing and destroying an experiment; I would suggest you come and help!”_

Sherlock sighed, Victoria had made a good point, a good logical point and he knew he had no choice but to help her.

_“Fine, but this won’t be becoming a regular thing.”_

_“Good, otherwise Mrs Hudson would be out of a job, wouldn’t she, and it’s not like I'm asking you to hoover Sherlock, just try and find enough glasses that we have enough for everyone coming, you know better than I do about numbers and drinking habits.”_

_“Uh huh”_ Sherlock began spinning round the kitchen at top speed, it was going to be easier to hide some of his experiments away than explain what they were. Victoria had seen the need for his experiment on Vitreous humour but he knew for a fact that Lestrade wouldn’t. That type of experiment whilst not illegal was immoral and so was easier to sweep under the carpet and pretend wasn’t happening while Lestrade was around. Sherlock had just lifted his homemade water-bath off the table when the doorbell to the flat went.

_“Maximum pressure”_

_“Yes Sherlock, close to a second, not a client but rather a friend, go and put that away, we’re not going to need it tonight”_

_“How can you be so sure?”_

_“I’m sure Sherlock, just go and dump it somewhere”_

Sherlock disappeared out of the back of the small kitchen. Victoria didn’t care where he put it, as long as it didn’t end up in her bed. There were limits to how close to the science she was willing to get.

 _“Yoo-Hoo”_ Mrs Hudson arrived at the door, closely followed by Lestrade. _“I hear you’re having a party”_

_“It's not really a party Mrs H or at least I hope it's not… and I didn’t really have a choice; it was happening here and as I live here there was no getting out of it.”_

_“Good point”_

Lestrade cleared his throat.

_“Oh yes, hi you must be Lestrade… Sherlock has told me not a lot about you but what he has said has all been good.”_

Lestrade slightly blushed, compliments from Sherlock, even if they were 2nd party compliments, were all too rare to be swept under the carpet.

 _“And you must be the new housemate… Victoria,”_ Victoria nodded “ _Sherlock has said absolutely nothing about you at all but I do know for a fact that if it wasn’t for you we would never have got to the bottom of the case with the insulin”_

_“I'm sure Sherlock would have got there… eventually.”_

_“Introductions... Wonderful, are we all getting on swimmingly?”_

Unbeknownst to all of them Sherlock had managed to creep into the living room.

_“Yes Sherlock fine thank you, do you want to do the honours and pour?”_


	26. The Drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinks at 221B never go smoothly, John's manages to navigate them past a catastrophe and Victoria has a needed heart to heart.

The Watson’s arrived within the hour; Sherlock could tell that John had begun to drink earlier in the day as well.  He wondered if there was a correlation between John’s apparent drinking and Victoria’s but he could come to no logical conclusion and assumed that the two events were unrelated.

“ _Can I get you two something to drink_?” in the past hour Victoria had morphed into the perfect host. She answered all of Lestrade’s questions with patience and honesty, paid every attention to Mrs Hudson and reined Sherlock in every time he began to overstep the mark. It was exhausting work and she had never been happier to see John and Mary. “ _erm can we get a wine and an orange juice?”_

 _“An orange juice?”_ Victoria raised an eyebrow in both a questioning and a knowing way. Mary blushed.

 _“Shut up and yes.”_ John teased her.

_“Coming right up”_

Molly was the next guest to arrive, slightly flushed and battered from the changing weather.

_“Can I get you a drink Molly?”_

_“Yes please Greg”,_ Lestrade rushed into the small kitchen where Victoria was still locating the orange juice. ‘ _I’ve seen it’_ She told herself, ‘ _Sherlock must have moved it when he tided away his experiments, right if I was a psychopath where would I hide the juice?’_

 _“So what’s he like to live with?”_ Greg hovered over where Victoria was searching in the cupboard.

_“Huh? Who? Sherlock?”_

_“Yeah…”_

_“It’s… interesting… ask me again in a month’s time and I might give you a totally different answer…”_

_“Yeah, I can only imagine…”_

_“It's probably safer if you didn’t”_

_“Safer?”_

_“If you didn’t”_

_“Didn’t what?”_

_“Imagine what it's like to live with Sherlock. Your imagination would turn into a very dangerous place”_

_“Oh right”_ Lestrade smiled at her, he finally understood what she was saying; he had years practice decoding the meaning behind what people were saying. Victoria and Lestrade both returned to the living room, drinks in hand.

 _“John”_ Victoria passed over a large glass of red wine, _“Mary, I couldn’t find the orange juice, can I get you something else instead?”_

_“Erm I’ll just have water then.”_

_“One water coming right up, Sherlock where have you hidden our orange juice?”_

Molly choked slightly on her wine, _“Our?”_

 _“Yes, our implying joint ownership over an object”_ Sherlock snapped at her.

 _“Sherlock”_ John warned. He had seen Sherlock rip Molly apart before, he knew Sherlock didn’t mean to, didn’t know he was doing it until it was too late, but still it wasn’t going to happen again, not while John was here.

 _“Not good?”_ Sherlock turned to face his best friend.

_“Almost, code red.”_

_“Right”_ Sherlock turned and walked into the small kitchen, _“do excuse me, I shall be back with the juice momentarily.”_

 _“Molly”_ John took control of the entire room, he was the only one who could guide them through the next phase of the conversation and now he had got rid of Sherlock it was going to be easier.

 _“This is Victoria, Victoria this is Molly”_ neither young women made an attempt to shake the others hand. Molly took another large gulp of her wine, Victoria started to shift from foot to foot, her brain not able to make any of the deductions it normally would, Victoria immediately regretted having had as much wine as she’d, had.

 _“Molly works at St. Bart’s”_ John continued. The tension in the room was now tangible, _“Victoria is a forensic entomologist”_ a confused look crept across Lestrade’s face.

 _“I’m currently lecturing, which is why I'm not on the departments pay roll.”_ Explained Victoria, Lestrade was clearly confused as to why he had never seen her at a crime scene before. Lestrade’s sound of understanding swam across the room.

_“Mary and I introduced Sherlock and Victoria to each other and they moved in together.”_

_“It’s closer to work for me and more conductive for thinking than my old house had been”_

_“Not to mention the separation”_ Sherlock’s voice called out from the kitchen.

 _“Not now Sherlock”_ spat John that was a topic that wasn’t up for discussion.

 _“How’s that orange juice coming Sherlock?”_ Mrs Hudson called across the tension that had now built in the room.

Sherlock returned to the room, quickly handed Mary her juice and turned to face the other people in the room. Molly looked like she was ready to pull Victoria out of the room and attempt to claim Sherlock as her own, John and Lestrade nervously eyed both women unaware of what was going to happen, Mrs Hudson nervously eyed up the wall, if she knew Sherlock as well as she thought she did there was going to be more bullet holes in her wall before the night was out and Mary looked like she was going to be sick. Sherlock turned his attention to Victoria, and something in his stomach dropped.  Victoria just looked confused; the amount of wine she had consumed clearly had dulled her senses.

 _“Erm…  John…can I have a quiet word… somewhere…”_ it had been Victoria who cut across the tension, John led her out of the living room and down the stairs to the hallway, as they both left the room Sherlock and Lestrade began on about a case they were working on.

Victoria climbed down the stairs and sat herself 5 from the bottom, John turned to face her, she had her fingers pressed into her temples, ‘ _she looks like Sherlock’_ John mussed

 _“I don’t understand”_ now that wasn’t something John was used to hearing Sherlock say, _‘this isn’t Sherlock’_ he reminded himself ‘ _she might be acting like Sherlock right now but that doesn’t **make** her Sherlock’_

 _“What don’t you understand?”_   John wasn’t going to just give her the answer she would feel better if she worked it out for herself

_“Molly… why she was acting how she was”_

_“How was she acting?”_

_“Like I don’t know… like...”_

_“Like you’d taken Sherlock from her?”_

_“Yes but I don’t want Sherlock! She can have him!”_

_“I know…”_ John rubbed his forehead, he didn’t know what to suggest. _“Think out loud”_   Victoria looked up at him, John had remembered something Sherlock once said, _“You might think better if you talk out loud – Sherlock said it helped.”_

_“Oh right, well maybe I should just explain to her that I don’t want him and that she can have him, does that sound sensible”_

_“Yeah… sort of… just be careful about how you go about it, she’s had enough upset the past couple of months…”_

_“Right, careful… John could you send her down please.”_

_“Erm yeah sure… Get out the way then.”_  Victoria chuckled to herself and stood up, the next thing she heard was the click click of Molly’s heels as they came down the wooden stairs. Victoria gathered herself this was going to need to be quick for the both of them.

 _“Molly, I feel you and I might have got off on the wrong foot. I’m not here to steal Sherlock away from you honestly, yes it was that obvious – it was written across your face I just misread it before sorry, I would like us to try and get along, the people closet to Sherlock tend to be the ones that get hurt the most and if we can’t rely on each other then we don’t have anyone really do we?”_ Victoria sighed, this was getting tedious. Here she was a fully grown woman explaining to another fully grown woman that she had no intention of stealing ‘ _her’_ man.

 _“Right”_ Molly didn’t say another word, but shifted from foot to foot, “ _So what’s he really like to live with?”_

 _“Oh just a joy”_ the sarcasm was thick in Victoria’s reply _“you know I can’t wait to bring friends back… boyfriends are clearly out of the picture too.”_ Molly chuckled and exhaled slightly all the tension now epping from her, _'the situation'_   Victoria told herself, ' _seems to have resolved itself nicely....that was easier than I thought it was going to be'_  

 _"Now we understand each other better_ " Victoria started _"Maybe we should head back upstairs - we dont want the boys sending out a search party for us"_

Molly turned on her heels and led them both back into the living room, 5 pairs of eyes bore into them, Molly sunk back slightly under the combined pressure,

 _“Molly can I get you more wine” Victoria_ reached out to touch her forearm,

 _“Yes please_ ”

_“Red? White? Pink?”_

Molly chuckled to herself _“How old are we?  Describing wine by its colour”_ Victoria raised an eyebrow at her _“erm pink please”_

 _“Madam has made a wise choice”_ Victoria said in her best mock French, and bowed out the room. The conversation ran back to the case that Sherlock was working on.

 _“Molly”_ Victoria stretched out her hand and placed it on Molly’s elbow, _“your wine”_

Sherlock rolled his eyes, _“Classic”_

 _“Yes thank you Sherlock”_ Victoria’s curt reply cut across his words _“not now…”_ the words sounded soft but she gave him a look that was a mixture of warning and something deeper something closer to pleading.

Victoria took her glass of wine and settled herself on the Chesterfield between Mrs Hudson and Mary as they all settled in for an evening of tensionless deductions, violin playing and conversation.


	27. The Conclusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The German Case is wrapped up, Sherlock and Victoria get their package back from Mycroft but it doesn't make any sense to Sherlock.

Victoria woke up and instantly swore of alcohol for the rest of her life, her mouth was dry and her head was pounding, she knew on a biological level what she needed to make herself feel better, she just didn’t seem able to persuade herself to get out of bed. It was then her alarm clock began to wail from its place on her bedside table – if she wasn’t in pain before she sure was now. She slapped her hand down on it causing the pain from her hand  to jump up to her head, Victoria braced herself and slowly levered herself out of bed and staggered her way over to the en suite at the far end of her room. Her parched mouth cried out for water and although it might not have been the most hygienic thing she had ever done; the water from the sink was at least clear and being honest to herself she had tasted much worse in her time in Africa. She eased the shower on and began the process of getting ready with a hangover.

[Text received from Mycroft Holmes] S + V, I’m sending a car to pick up the both of you I have found your mystery German, be ready by 9 – MH

Victoria heard her phone ring from in the shower, groaning she turned the shower off and wrapped herself in her dressing gown and padded into her room.

[To Mycroft Holmes] I’m sorry but unless you have managed to cancel my concert this evening I’m in rehearsals all day – Sherlock will have to go alone. I know this doesn’t fit the deal you made with him but you must see…

Victoria had lied to Mycroft, she wouldn’t be in rehearsals all day, she would be home for an hour or so to change and head back out but Mycroft didn’t need to know that, there was no way she could take a detour to the country today.

[Text received from Mycroft Holmes] It seems the situation is out of your hands now – MH

Victoria dressed herself and made her way downstairs remembering to pick up her viola on the way.

Sherlock was in the kitchen pacing back and forth talking quickly down the phone. He and Victoria danced around each other in the small kitchen, Sherlock so wrapped up in his conversation and Victoria equally distracted by the pain in her head that it wasn’t until they bumped into each other that Sherlock acknowledged her presence in the room,

“Morning bright eyes,” smirking he teased her, _Mycroft_ he mouthed in reply to the gesture toward the phone Victoria gave.

‘C _learly’_ she told herself _‘Mycroft is briefing Sherlock, he’s probably ranting about the fact that I can’t be there but to be honest I couldn’t care, I'm not about to just run after the Holmes boys at the drop of a hat – clearly that’s what they are used to, but I say no more!’_   Victoria caught Sherlock’s attention again _Tea?_ She mouthed across the room; Sherlock nodded in reply and rolled his eyes as the voice on the other side of the phone began again. Victoria had to stifle a giggle, the last thing she needed was to make Mycroft angry with her.

Sherlock covered the mouth piece of his mobile

“Two sugars please”

“Two?!? That’s mute for you, is he really angry with me?” she nodded towards the phone.

“Who Mycroft? No angrier than he is with China or Istanbul”

“Great...” Victoria couldn’t tell whether or not he was being serious but it wasn’t worth the risk, she made a mental note to do something for Mycroft to make up for it, she didn’t know what yet but she was sure she could come up with something.

“Tea for you.” She placed Sherlock’s tea in the middle of the table, pouring hot water into her thermos, “Right I'm off, see you much, much later on.”

Sherlock grunted in reply, Victoria shook her head at least a grunt might have meant he had heard and if he hadn’t the calendar made it clear she was going to be out late and that he shouldn’t worry – if he ever began to do such a thing.

A black limo honked its horn no more than ten minutes later and Sherlock was whisked off to the countryside to wrap up whatever he would find in the country side.

*          *          *          *          *         

[Text received from Sherlock] I’m in Sussex, most boring county ever – SH

[Text received from Sherlock] I spoke too soon; this could be interesting – SH

[Text received from Sherlock] Mycroft is doing leg work, make sure you have John on stand-by; someone is going to get injured – SH

[Text received from Sherlock] We were right – SH

[Text received from Sherlock] I’m going to be back late – don’t wait up – SH

*          *          *          *          *         

Victoria finally managed to get a ten minute break from rehearsals, the conductor wasn’t happy with the orchestra; wasn’t happy with the violinists mainly, there was a 1st violinist missing so that had meant an emergency section wide reshuffle; so no one really knew where they stood anymore.

Victoria pulled out her phone as she began her hunt for some mid-morning coffee, between not having had breakfast and forgoing her morning coffee for tea; her energy reserves were running low. A smile clawed its way across her face at Sherlock’s words – they had been proved right; Alex - the man with the bandaged face was the brother of Erika. And they had both got themselves into a dreadful situation

[To Sherlock] Go and get the bad man ;)

Victoria all but stumbled upon a Starbucks, her phone vibrated whilst she was trying to pay

[From Sherlock] I forbid you from using that again and like that wasn’t our intention in coming to this god forsaken place – SH

Fidgeting nervously in the queue she attempted to form a reply

[To Sherlock] You forbid it?! I would like to see you try and forbid me from doing anything ;) and good, make sure Mycroft gives us the damn package.

[From Sherlock] I am ignoring you, you are being ignored. – SH

[From Sherlock] And I shall definitely get it from him, even if I have to steal it from him – SH

[To Sherlock] Your ignoring is going well

[From Sherlock] Boring

Victoria rolled her eyes, collected her coffee and made her way back to the hall; it was going to be a long afternoon and an even longer evening.

*          *          *          *          *

[21:30 Text received from Sherlock] I’m going to the club to pick up the package be ready for it at the flat –SH

[22:00 Text received from Sherlock] I said be at the flat why are you not here? – SH

 

[22:30 Text received from Sherlock] John, do you know where Victoria is? – SH

[22:31 Text received from John] No I don’t, isn’t it a bit early to be panicking yet? Her life isn’t in danger yet is it?

[22:43 Text received from Sherlock] Early, yes, maybe and that _yet_ is totally unnecessary I will keep her safe – SH

[22:44 Text received from John] Sherlock you can’t promise that and what’s with the sudden caring routine?

 

[23:45 Text received from Victoria Harrison] Sherlock I told you this morning that I was going to be out late, I said I would see you much much later – it’s even written on the calendar that it’s my concert tonight. While it is nice to know that you care you need to calm down, I’m not going to get myself into any stupid situations. Now back to the hot topic of the day what was in the package?

[23:46 Text sent to Victoria Harrison] I don’t really know. – SH

[23:47 Text received from Victoria Harrison] I'm coming home right now, see you in ten.

Sherlock threw his phone down on the Chesterfield; he had found the calendar about half an hour ago. Sherlock had surprised himself with how much he had worried about her, he told himself it was because she was younger than he was and that he was caring for her in the way that an elder brother does. But in all honesty it was harder for him to express why he was worried about her. He knew her living with him meant that her life could easily be in danger. He knew that should anything serious have happened to her that he would have stopped at nothing to find her again and bring the people responsible to justice.

Sighing Sherlock picked up the package Mycroft had returned to him, inside was a carved turtle and a large shirt. A large shirt covered in short hand, short hand he had managed to translate himself thanks to the book Victoria had. It just didn’t mean anything to him.

_“If you want a boxer, I will step into the ring for you and if you want a doctor I’ll examine every inch of you, if you want a driver climb inside or if you want to take me for a ride you know you can cause I'm your man,_

_And if you’ve got to sleep, a moment on the road, I will steer for you, and if you want to work the street alone, I'll disappear for you and if you want a father for your child only want to walk with me a while across the sand, I'm your man,_

_The moons too bright, the chains too tight, the beast won’t go to sleep, I've been running through these promises to you that I made and I could not keep. But a man never got a women back not by begging her on his knees, and I’d crawl to you baby and I’d fall at your feet, I’d howl at your beauty like a dog in heat, I’d claw at your heart and I’d tear at your sheet I’d say please, please cause I'm your man.”_

Sherlock hoped that it would mean more to Victoria and that she would know where to go next.


	28. The Song

Victoria tore up the stairs into the flat, Sherlock had said that he didn’t know, and while he would never admit it that meant that he didn’t understand something, Victoria had only been living with him a short time but already she knew that if Sherlock didn’t understand something it meant something critical was about to happen.

“Where is it?” she blurted out as soon as she rounded the door

“On the table” Victoria stripped off her coat, bag and scarf and dumped them all in the arm chair opposite Sherlock’s.

“Did they find anything on the box?” Victoria made her way over to the table near the Chesterfield; the nerves beginning to build in her stomach. This was the first time that criminals had come knocking on her door.

“Apparently not, apparently it was clean beyond the post office staff, oh and Mrs Hudson who opened the door to the Postie”

“Hmmm…Interesting”

Victoria pulled out the small turtle first, turning it over in her hands she recognised the mother of pearl shell and the engraving on the bottom, Victoria began to feel very sick, but told herself ‘ _it couldn’t be him, he wouldn’t be so stupid as to try and win me back, but if it is him - what on earth does it mean. Why was he doing this, and if it is him I'm going to have to explain to Sherlock right this second who he is, who is to me and what happened… I'm going to have to keep in control of my emotions, I'm going to have to make sure that I don’t burst… Tears or rage -  neither of which are truly appropriate here, are any good for me or Sherlock  or what’s going on here.’_

Victoria collapsed onto the chesterfield.

“Sherlock make me a cup of tea”

“What? Why?”

“Please…” Victoria looked small, innocent and in trouble. Sherlock flicked the kettle on.

“Do you know what that is?”

“I have a strong suspicion that I do yeah but nothing conclusive yet.”

She pulled out the shirt and saw the short hand, “throw me a pen” Sherlock obliged her and went back to finding cups and making tea.

Victoria began translating the short hand on the front of the shirt _. “If you want a boxer, I will step into the ring for you and if you want a doctor I’ll examine every inch of you, if you want a driver climb inside or if you want to take me for a ride you know you can ‘cause I'm your man…”_

Sherlock brought over her tea, Victoria was visibly shaking now. Sherlock couldn’t determine whether or not she was cold or it was the words written on the shirt, either way it didn’t make any sense to him

“You look terrible, are you alright?” the last thing Sherlock needed was a compromised assistant, he passed down her cup of tea, hoping that the tea would help sooth her.

“Huh. What? Yeah.”

“Then calm down and tell me what’s going on.” Sherlock began pacing back and forth in the small living room.

Victoria sighed and took a moment to settle herself, this wasn’t going to be easy, it was about to get emotional – well at least for her anyway.

“It's Sam”

“I'm sorry who?”

Victoria inhaled; this wasn’t how she wanted to inform Sherlock of her past but needs must and so she began.

“He is the guy I separated from”

“Right ok” Sherlock began sipping his tea.

“And now he’s either sending me an ‘I’m sorry take me back’ box or it does in fact have an ulterior sinister meaning.”

“How do you know it's him?”

“The words… the words are that of our song”

“ _Our_ song”

“Do you know nothing of romance?”

“You know the answer to that”

“Well it was the song that Sam proclaimed said all the things that he could never put into words, it's a stupid emotional thing – I wouldn’t expect you to understand”

“Good because I don’t, how do you know for a fact that it's him?”

“How do I know it's not a coincidence? Well for one there is no such thing as coincidence and two – the turtle”

“The turtle?”

“Yeah…” Victoria picked up the small wooden animal. “He gave it to me, it has the same carving on the bottom and everything – it can only be from him”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and swallowed more of his tea. This case was going to be difficult for Victoria, it seemed that her ex was coming back to haunt her, and not in a good way.

“Sherlock have you seen the short hand on the label?”

“No, there’s short hand on the label?!” Sherlock stepped towards the chesterfield.

“No, I made it up”

“Really?”

“No Sherlock, sarcasm!”

“Well what does it say?”

“Erm… head north for 50 years, till you get to the small house in the Alps, there you shall find the next clue… and Victoria I'm coming home”

“Let’s go” Sherlock moved to pick up his coat.

“Go where? Go how?” Victoria looked at her watch “Now it's really, really late”

Sherlock began to pull on his long coat, “the clue he left has been there for days now already, the chances of it still being there are becoming rapidly slim, now put your coat on, we have to get on the tube” Sherlock threw Victoria her coat.

“You’re not joking are you?”

“I never joke; this could be the most important case of your career”

“This isn’t a case! - This is my _life_ Sherlock!”

“Yes and I'm sorry but it seems tonight they are one and the same, now are you coming or am I going on my own?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her, he knew the answer.

Victoria rolled her eyes, this was all her fault. She was going to have to go with Sherlock. She groaned in exasperation, “Urgh, fine lets go” Sherlock smirked at her and led her out of the living room and down the steps.

‘ _I will keep you safe’_ he internally promised her _‘even if I have to kill Sam Jackson I will keep you safe, you are worryingly becoming a necessary cog’._

 _‘I can’t let this get out of hand, I have to make sure that Sherlock doesn’t kill anyone – after his outburst earlier he clearly cares about me, I need to keep a foot on the ground at all times, for me as well as him. Victoria’_ she told herself sternly _‘now is the time to develop that hardened outer, you are going to need it, this is going to hurt. Sherlock could very easily put his foot in it tonight but he doesn’t mean too, he doesn’t understand, he will never understand…’_

“Breathe” Sherlock had led them to the Baker Street Station, Victoria hadn’t noticed “Whatever happened here tonight I need you to keep calm and think”

[CALLING MYCROFT HOLMES…]

“Hello to you too… Give me everything you’ve got on a Sam Jackson, 29, previously of Primrose Hill, member of the Diogenes Club, and now suspected criminal. As soon as possible thank you. Goodbye brother dearest, try not to start any wars, I need to the tubes to run all night.”

“I… Wait… You looked him up?” Sherlock pushed Victoria into the station.

“It was necessary”

“When? When did you judge it necessary?”

“Yesterday, and I'm glad I did now”

Victoria sighed shouting at Sherlock in a semi crowded tube station was the last thing that needed to happen. She would just have to gently remind him when they were next at home, that privacy and honesty were both important to her, if he had of just asked her -  she would have told him.

 

 


	29. The Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right guys there will be more to this but after fighting with it for weeks now I figured it was better to get it out there. 
> 
> There probably wont be another update till I have handed in my final project next week...
> 
> Just know in a few chapters Victoria will be swaying in Sherlock's arms :P

“Right, I shall deal with the fact that once again Sherlock you have been an arse later on, for now we focus on what the hell is going on here”

“I agree”

“Of course you do, I'm letting you off the hook…. For now” If a look could scream ‘don’t mess with me young man or you will live to regret it’ it would be the look that she shot in Sherlock’s direction. Sherlock quickly stored the imagine in his mind palace, if he could replicate it in the future then she would understand exactly what he meant without having to say any words. Haptic communication was going to be by far the most efficient method of communication between them. A clock in the distance chimed 12

“…Sherlock it's getting really late… The tube is stopping for the night I don’t fancy getting locked in a carriage overnight”

“A car”

“I'm sorry”

“They’re called cars, relic of the American involvement in the setting up of the early tube system.”

“How do you..?”

“Previous case, you’d be surprised what I've had to store thanks to old cases.”

 “I bet I would…” The sarcasm was now tangible in Victoria’s voice; she was getting annoyed with the situation and the way that Sherlock was dealing with it. He wasn’t helping her but he was never going to. He would never understand what she was going through. What she needed was someone who understood what was going on unfortunately she didn’t know anyone whose ex-partner had turned out to be a criminal mastermind.

Sherlock began calculating all the variables in the case, there was too many, whatever form Sam had left the next clue in was more than likely to be completely gone by now. Sherlock was furious at himself _‘if only I had trusted her more’_ he scolded himself _, ‘I knew she could have handled it and yet I took the parcel to Mycroft! Mycroft! If I hadn’t of done that we would have been 4 days ahead of where we are now, we would already have this clue and probably many more. I still don’t know who this Sam Jackson really is or what he wants, a situation I am going to do my best to change, I hate not knowing.’_

 _“_ Victoria it's going to be a long night, are you going to be ok at work tomorrow?”

“I’m going to have to be aren’t I? It’s not like I have a choice in the matter… and anyway only have to teach first years tomorrow, they might seem like better students if I'm half asleep.”

Sherlock chuckled; Victoria’s dislike of her first year students was becoming amusing.

“Sherlock, do you want to tell me where we’re going? I’m your only way into this _case_ so you need to keep me in the loop”

Sherlock looked round, noticing that Baker Street station was practically empty he smiled; this was how he wanted it, this way he was able to keep a look out for people following them. He was sure that they were alone but found he was becoming more and more paranoid and protective. He had Victoria to look after as well. He told himself she was compromised and that his protective nature was all that was in result of that.

“We’re going where he wants us to - dangerous and unadvisable though it may be. You should be able to figure out where we’re going. Do you have a tube map?”

“Sherlock I live in London I don’t need a tube map, it's engrained in my brain”

“Well then figure it out.”

“Well the only lines you can travel north on from here are the Jubilee and the Metropolitan”

 They both swiped into the station and made their way to the north bound platforms.

“So which is it the Met or the Jubilee?”

“Erm…”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and sighed, clearly this was going to be a long night; _maybe Victoria needs some caffeine to be more efficient, she seems to be missing a faculty or two._ He dismissed the idea of coffee instantly; they were running out of time as it was.

“We’re going north bound on the jubilee until we get to Swiss Cottage”

“What?”

“We don’t have time for this, come on…” Sherlock pulled her towards the Jubilee platform, just as the train was pulled on to the platform. The car was empty except for a couple wound around each other at the other end. Victoria sat at the opposite end of the car and signalled for Sherlock to come and join her.

“You have what 2 stops to explain, go”

“I have about 5 minutes.” Sherlock leaned over to Victoria and carried on talking in a hushed tone, the decrease in volume also had the startling effect of lowering the tone of his voice as well. It was now barely audible over the rumble of the car. “To start with he gave us all the clues we need in the form of that riddle, god I hate riddles. Head north for 50 years, well north narrowed it down to two lines, the Met and the Jubilee, for 50 years, when a monarch has been on the throne for 50 years it becomes their golden jubilee that indicated the jubilee line. So far so obvious - north on the jubilee line. Till you get to the small house in the Alps, a small house could be called a cottage and part of the Alps is in Switzerland making that stretch of them Swiss. So putting it all together, go North on the jubilee line till you get to Swiss Cottage, there you shall find the next clue.” Sherlock fired his explanation at her almost too fast for her to take it in. She had finished processing his entire speech by the time that Sherlock was pulling her off the car and back on to the platform.

“But wait” Victoria pulled against Sherlock’s arm holding hers, “What are we even looking for”

“I don’t know. But we are just going to have to be observant and hope we can find it”

“Great a needle in a haystack and we have no idea what the needle looks like or how big the haystack is.”

“If you like, now come on” Sherlock stalked away from her and up the escalator, his long Belstaff billowing out behind him. Victoria raced up the steps to join him.

“Sherlock just exactly how is this going to work?”

“I don’t know yet, just come on, I'm sure I’ll figure it out, it can’t be that hard”

 Victoria sighed; she was too tired for this, too tired for this game of cat and mouse. For all this running around London. For this game, this stupid game that she was going to lose whatever the outcome was.

They both stepped off the escalator and into the station remaining tube side of the gates. Sherlock quickly scanned the station; it was empty except for one homeless man out by the entrance. Sherlock span back round to face Victoria

“Right well it's either somewhere in the station or it's part of the station”

“Or… well God it could be anything and nothing couldn’t it?!”

“Yes it could”

“This is going to be impossible”

“Welcome to my world. I often have to make 5 impossible things happen before breakfast”

“You preparing breakfast being one of them!”

Sherlock scoffed and turned to face the posters and signs in the station, “These will have been here for more than 4 days. This would be an ideal place to leave an embedded message”

“What in a poster?” Victoria faced the _Book of Mormon_ poster “Well how on earth are we going to find an embedded message within one of these posters? Now that is impossible”

“An encryption within a poster, it’ll be a string of letters or numbers that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the poster, a misplaced QR code or barcode… Just look for something which is out of place”

“More than we are right now?”

“More than we are”

Sherlock pulled his phone out of his pocket.

“Victoria Harrison” a voice unused to being projected growled from across the barrier, both she and Sherlock span round to the owner of the voice. It was the homeless man from the entrance, while they had been busy looking at the posters he had crept up to the barrier.

“Maybe who wants to know?”

“I am not important but you might be expecting this.”

 He held an envelope up in his left hand. Victoria stepped forward, Sherlock pulled her back

“Wait”

“What?”

“He’s not who you think he is.”

“I don’t think he is anyone”

“Well good because he’s not homeless…”

“What?”

“How many homeless people do you know who dye their hair and wear Rolexes?” Victoria glanced up at the man and caught the sight of the man’s roots slightly grown out at the temples. He was clearly trying to fight the signs of aging.

“So who the hell is he then?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out”

Sherlock steered her away from the man and strode towards him.

“Victoria or no one gets it”

Sherlock turned on Victoria, mind fiercely calculating all the possible ways this could end; ‘ _as long as she stays this side of the barrier she’s safe I don’t think he’s about to leap the barrier’_

“Don’t cross the barrier”

“I won’t - I'm not an idiot.”


End file.
